This week, you will begin work on your Final Project for this module. Your Final Project for this module will be completed in three stages and submitted in Weeks 4, 6, and 8. This week, you will complete the first stage of your Final Project—the Project Proposal. The purpose of the Final Project is to apply the concepts and techniques of the module to the development of the following:

• Project scope statement
• WBS
• Project schedule
• Staffing (resource) management plan
• Cost estimates
• Risk management plan
• Communications plan
• Quality plan

Each of these will form a separate section of the Final Project.

Your task for Week 4 is to prepare a Project Proposal that covers the following:

• Description of how you plan to manufacture, deliver, and assemble the boxes.
• Information on how you will create a project plan. You can create your project plan using either Microsoft® Project or OpenProj™.
• Description of how you plan to address time, resources, and cost issues to execute tasks and complete the project effectively and efficiently.

The purpose of this week’s submission is a proposal and not the solutions to the problems given in the case study.

The case study on which the project is based is as follows:

Project Background: The Research and Development unit of the Property Development Department of the Government (PDDG) is working on a program called the Seismic Zone Residential Construction Improvement Program. PDDG is working to assess the effectiveness of the boxes of a particular dimension used in the foundation of buildings.

PDDG has furnished the following specifications for the each box:

• The size must be 300 x 250 x 200 cm with a slot of 10 x 10 x 25 cm.
• The tolerance on outer dimensions must be +/-2 cm.
• The tolerance on dimensions of the slot must be 0 to -3 mm in width. In short, the slot cannot be more than 10 x 10 cm.
• It should be made of cardboard or metal sheet.
• It should be made of small cubes of dimensions 5 x 5 x 5 cm.
• It should be smooth in appearance.

The boxes should be delivered and assembled at the client’s site.

Company Background: Your company, Flexible Models (FM), develops to-the-scale industrial models. Your principal clients are industrial construction companies and your projects include building manufacturing plants, refinery process plants, and public usage buildings, such as halls and shopping malls.

FM also has clients in the residential construction business but deals in building complexes having more than 17,000 square meters of actual usable area. The model development skills of FM are well-known across industries.

The key departments in FM are as follows:

• Designing and Drafting Department: This department is involved in understanding the client’s design requirements. Generally, the client specifies the design of the product. The department prepares the detailed drawings for the Cutting Department. It also gives them the assembly drawings with guidelines on the assembly approach. The resources from this department are allocated exclusively to the project depending upon the project requirements. Roy Benjamin, general manager, heads the department. He needs alternate day updates on product design. He is also a man of detail and requires detailed analysis.
• Cutting Department: This department’s staff is competent in cutting the parts and producing the units as per the drawings. The resources from this department are not allocated exclusively to the project. However, the project work is taken up by the department and then delivered back to the project. Michael Gartner, general manager, heads the department.
• Assembly Department:This department is responsible for assembling the parts based on the design drawings. The resources from this department are allocated to the project exclusively depending upon the project requirements. Philip Cloony, general manager, heads the department.
• Supply Chain Management (SCM) Department: This department is responsible for vendor management, market analysis, contracting, and procuring required resources. The department is a single point of contact for the supply chain. Jim Stanford, general manager, heads the department.
• New Model Development: John Morris is the vice president of this division. John is adept at using the Web-based project tracking system and insists on maximising its use. He is a person of detail and prefers point-by-point communication. He is keen on regularly obtaining information on the progress of the project and the project management processes that are being implemented. Having realised the need for effective portfolio management, FM has initiated the organisation restructuring efforts under John’s leadership, who is also the project sponsor. He wants you to undertake this project and help in strengthening the organisation’s initiative. You have been authorised by John to select people from various key departments for your project. These people shall directly report to you for the duration of the project.

The marketing chief, Caroline Smith, wants to keep the budget under control. Caroline is quite comfortable with quick information and does not like details. She prefers one-on-one meetings or telephone calls for quick updates.

FM primarily uses e-mail as the means of communication. The company also uses a Web-based project tracking system to gather information.

The editorial team of a local journal, Construction Consortium Journal, is interested in your project. Joseph Bukhmann, the chief editor, has full faith in FM’s expertise. He wants to know more about the project to report it in the journal.

Client Background:Paul Lee, the technical lead at the Research and Development unit of PDDG wants a once-a-week update about the progress of the technical design. The Seismic Zone Residential Construction Improvement Program Manager at PDDG would like to speak with you about the project progress on a biweekly basis. However, he needs a short presentation on the project status update two days before the biweekly call.

Assignment: You are accountable for the project costs, and hence, you are keen on developing realistic cost estimates and a realistic project budget. You have already estimated the effort, which is given in the table below:

‘Product detail analysis’ can start with ‘Interview client stakeholders’. However, the final draft can be refined only after both tasks are completed. The task ‘Details with operation designs’ starts with a 50% overlap with ‘High level design’. The tasks ‘Sub-assembly 1’, ‘Sub-assembly 2’, and ‘Sub-assembly 3’ all start after the task ‘Set up’ is completed. ‘Assembly integration’ starts only after all sub-assemblies are completed. Pre-delivery can start after set up, while shipment starts only after assembly integration. The last activity is implementation.

The ‘Cutting and parts development’ task requires skilled labour and is the most crucial task from a quality perspective. A minor mistake can cause a lot of waste and escalation in the cost of the product. There are only two skilled people in the company who can undertake this task and they are always extremely busy. The probability that they will not be available for this work in the schedule mentioned above is 0.7. This has impact on the schedule as the schedule gets pushed by 6 days for every day of delay in this task.

Traditionally, there has been a 0.3 probability of components getting damaged during shipment and the costs should incorporate 30% of additional budgeting for these incidences. In addition, factors such as a change in client requirements after the cutting stage, a delay in the arrival of raw materials needed for each task or process, and the time wasted during incorrect set-up should be considered when you draw the risk log and the risk management plan for the project.

Resource rates are as follows:

Material rate:

• USD 20 per industrial cardboard sheet of 300 cm x 200 cm x (4 mm thickness) dimensions
• USD 25 per metal sheet of 250 cm x 200 cm x (4 mm thickness) dimensions
• Standard cubes of 4 cm are available in the market at USD 10 each

Labour rate:

• Design department: USD 150 per day
• Cutting department: USD 90 per day
• Assembly department: USD 150 per day

For completing the project plan, additional information can be found at the following Web sites:

Example of project plan in Microsoft Project:

• Plutonic Power Corporation East Toba River and Montrose Creek Hydroelectric Project proposed construction schedule [Online]. (n.d.). Available from: http://a100.gov.bc.ca/appsdata/epic/documents/p245/d21140/1137607116785_57cca76fbbb94930bfb5cd42fc4020fb.pdf (Accessed: 15 September 2009)

Using OpenProj:
Getting started with OpenProj (2008) Available from: http://openproj.org/wiki/index.php/Getting_Started_with_OpenProj (Accessed: 15 September 2009)
Note: Additional documentation can be accessed by clicking Next Tip of the Day within OpenProj and by pressingF1, which will give you online help for the item underneath the cursor. Note also, as an open source software package, documentation and support will be limited.
Examples of a project plan in OpenProj

Gantt chart (2008) Available from: http://openproj.org/wiki/index.php/Gantt_Chart (Accessed: 15 September 2009)

Please make sure that you cite and reference all your outside sources properly, as per the Harvard Referencing System.

Use the Turnitin link below to submit your assignment.