The Concept and Project of Developing New and Large Motors - Essay Example

? Understanding the Concept of Project Management of the of the Table of Contents No1 Project Scope No2 Type of Required Staff 2 No3 Team building Strategies 4 No4 Role of Project manager 5 No5 Importance of identifying Critical Path 6 No6 Work break down Structure 8 No7 Development of Charts 9 Understanding the Concept of Project Management No1 Project Scope Project management is defined as a planned effort to achieve a particular project. It includes managing, organizing and planning that leads to accomplishment in achieving the project. Project management includes the planning of a project, identifying goals and tasks that have to be achieved. This new proposed project of shifting or manufacturing large motors is first step for ensuring the diversification with the help of product and market development. It is expected that the proposed budget will bring success for the company and will increase its market share tremendously. However, success of this project entirely depends upon the planning and implementation process, the concept and project of developing new and large motors for heavy vehicle is quite challenging because company is operating in an industry that is characterized by the production of small motors. Given below is the detailed analysis of procedures with the help of which we are going to achieve our goals. No2 Type of Required Staff Staffing is a function of Human Resources which incorporates the proper management of the workforce of an organization. Staffing involves all the steps required to create an efficient workforce for an organization and to maintain the efficiency of that workforce. Staffing incorporates all the functions of a human resource department from recruitment and hiring to evaluation, promotion and layoffs. Effective staffing is very important for the growth and success of an organization (Ranne, 2011). It helps an organization get the best employees for all of its departments and this ensures higher productivity and better performance. Individuals of different technical and non-technical backgrounds were assigned to the pilot project team on either a full or part-time basis. Also, managers from both production and business departments were included to coordinate the effort and provide inputs to the project team. Each participant belonged to one or more of the five entities defined for the project: planning board, project board, project team, key stakeholders and key resources (see Fig. 1). The staffing will be based on the internal guidelines of the company for the production of new motors. Fig. 1: Project organization View Within Article The planning board will be responsible for the high-level effort and its strategic alignment with business processes. It will compose of an End-user designing and execution committee (EDEC), a planning manager, and the chief information officer (CIO) as its chair. EDEC provided related feedbacks on DWG from a business-user perspective. The project board will be responsible for overall practical planning, coordination, and evaluation of the project, with close cooperation from business customers in functional departments. Business customers were responsible for the validation of new motor models and follow-up on modeling issues specific to business requirements. The board consisted of a planning manager as the project sponsor and liaison between the boards, a technical representative, and three representatives from customer departments. Since business units of the company were organized according to three customer levels (individual, group, and corporate), one representative from each customer level participated in the project board. According to the internal guidelines, key stakeholders should be people whose departments will be affected by the implementation of large motors. In this project, however, because of the crucial importance of stakeholders’ role, they were directly involved in the planning and project boards. No3 Team building Strategies Team building is an important and crucial part of any organization. The contribution of each member is essential for completing a task effectively. According to the Article “Accounting for Teamwork: a Critical Study of Group-Based Systems of Organizational Control” by Ezzamel et.al in 1998, it was found that the teamwork can have far better effects on the organization than working individually. Organizations can achieve greater output in terms of productivity, profitability etc. if they are focusing on group based systems that encourages team work in the organizational processes. This article was a critical study in which the authors have reviewed the effects of teamwork and identified that why managers enforce team working spirit among their subordinates. This was mainly to achieve synergy and group cohesion. A physical team development consists of four stages, which are forming, storming, norming and performing. Forming is the first stage where the group goes through a preparatory phase. All the members come together. The members are polite and dull. Chances of having a conflict are negligible. Individuals seem to be reserved and guarded in their own opinions. Stage of storming comes next. In this stage, the members start to collaborate and communicate with each other. Factions are formed; personalities come to the initial clash; communication rate is slow. Norming stage includes recognition of members with each other. The members find benefits of working mutually. Members began to feel secure in their expressions about their views and opinions. Open discussions start to take place. Whole group gets involve collectively in fulfilling the tasks. People start compromising and listening to other members. Working methods are established and recognized by everyone in the group. The last stage of development is performing. Group adopts a free and open exchange of views and opinions. The degree of supporting each other is high. The decisions are mutually taken. The work level and quality rises in this stage. It is the highest level of performance. This helps and motivates the members in identifying each other’s’ and team’s importance (Donnellon, 1996). No4 Role of Project manager The project manager meets one of the most important roles in the organizational structure. However, this role is different and depends on the type occurring in the organization structure. The services that the person in the "project manager role" is to provide project management methods are more difficult to be defined: It is expected behavior according to the assigned role In today’s rapidly changing business environment, success of any project or organization lies in the ability of management to effectively communicate with their employees, lead all small and large teams, and manage fruitful negotiations as well as conflicts. It is a fact that, conflicts can be seen in any business unit, division or at organizational as well as individual levels. These conflicts occur due to various reasons including absence of common values and goals, difference in knowledge of employees, poor training and lacking in experience (Black, 2008). In addition, poor communication, weak interpersonal skills, excess of stress and fear also play a major role in developing conflicts in the internal environment of organization. Further, conflicts affect organization’s development as well as employees’ performances In the production and implementation of this suggested plan, project manager is responsible for keeping the morale high of team members, setting and then meeting deadlines for different tasks and for future planning. Project manager is also responsible in the forecasting of associated risk and its mitigation (Teerlink, 2000). Success of any project entirely depends upon the dedication and involvement of its project managers. Main three characteristics that are essential for the project managers in such kind of project are as follow; he she should be technical sound (know the basics of engineering), possess the leadership quality (can keep the morale of project team high) and critical (he need to critically analyze all the aspects and elements of a project). No5 Importance of identifying Critical Path The large-scale projects once have existed since ancient times, a fact witnessed by the building of the pyramids of Egypt and the aqueducts of Rome. Recently it has been analyzed by researchers operational management problems associated with these projects. (Howell, 2002) The problem of project management came up with the arms of the Polaris project, starting 1958. With so many components and subcomponents together produced by different manufacturers, it needed a new tool for programming and controlling the project. The DuPont Company, together with the Division of Remington Rand UNIVAC, developed the critical path method (CPM) to manage and maintain the projects DuPont chemical plant. CPM was designed to provide various items of information useful for project managers. The method is based definition of the longest sequence of tasks from the beginning of the project until its completion in accordance with their relationship. Tasks on the critical path (critical tasks) have zero reserve run-time and in case of change of their duration to change the terms of the project. The important method for using the Critical Path Method is to construct the project management model: Time It is to analyze the time that each activity will require in order to be completed. Time is divided into two categories: The normal time which is similar to the estimated time could be viewed as the moots effective and efficient time in order to complete the project. (Koseoglu, 1993) The crash time is the time required when additional resources are added in order to complete the job. Quality CPM provides a tool to control and monitor the progress of the project. Each activity has its own role in this and its importance in the completion of the project was immediately apparent to the director. The critical path activities, allowing therefore receive most attention, because the completion of the project depends heavily on them. Non-critical activities are handled and replaced on response to the availability of resources. Cost CPM also considers the resources required to complete the activities. In many projects, the limitations in manpower and equipment make programming difficult. CPM project identifies the moment that these restrictions will cause problems and according to the flexibility allowed by the slack times of the noncritical activities, allows the manager to handle certain activities to alleviate these problems. We have classified the completion of our project into four stages (activities); A) Identification of functional requirement B) Supplier evaluation (purchasing of machinery required to produce large motors C) Development of teams or recruitment of technical employees D) Installation of plant and related equipment. Each activity depends upon the succession of other or its preceding activity. Activity Description Activity Name Dependency Identification of Functional Requirement A Does not depend on any activity Suppliers Evaluation B Depends upon the activity A Development of functional teams C Depends upon the activity B Installation of machinery and plant D Depends upon the activity A B C D No6 Work break down Structure Work breakdown structure is also a project management tool used by project managers to breakdown the large projects into small fragments or activities to help the management in organizing the project activities and in the identification of the total project scope. The Work Breakdown Structure is how you organize the set of activities you have to perform to reach the results you expect at the right time within the budget and with the quality level defined. Given below is the work break down structure of our underlying project. No7 Development of Charts Gantt chart A B C D E Activity Description Starting date Completed Remaining Activity 1 Identification of Functional Requirement 5/1/2013 205 10 Activity 2 Suppliers Evaluation 6/14/2013 200 120 Activity 3 Development of functional teams 6/22/2013 140 200 Activity 4 Installation of machinery and plant 7/20/2013 44 380 References Jukka Ranne, (2011), Business Plan of a Motorcycle company; Case of Motosi Oy, Bachlors Thesis. Joseph Phillips (2003). PMP Project Management Professional Study Guide. McGraw-Hill Professional David I. Cleland, Roland Gareis (2006). Global project management handbook. "Chapter 1: "The evolution of project management". McGraw-Hill Professional, 2006. Paul C. Dinsmore et al (2005) The right projects done right! John Wiley and Sons, 2005. Ozley, L., And Teerlink, R., (2000), More Than a Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey at Harley-Davidson; Harvard Business Press, Pp. 100-145. Read More