Whitbread World Sailboat Race - Assignment Example

Running head: PROJECT PLAN FOR WHITBREAD WORLD SAILBOAT RACE Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race Goes Here of Phoenix Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race Project management can be defined as "a carefully planned and organized effort to accomplish a specific (and usually) one-time effort," (Free Management Library) It is important the project is completed in time as otherwise there will be additional costs incurred. The major consideration in the reduction of time in any project is the cost-time situation, as the decision as to the reduction of time normally would involve additional cost. However there may be more pressing reasons which may necessitate the overriding of the cost considerations. Therefore the project manager is always confronted with the situation of finding a better tradeoff between the reduction of the project duration and the additional cost involved in the reduction of duration and the decision to reduce depends on his ability to withstand the pressure for the early completion of the project. While the fact remains that the duration of the project is fixed at the conceptual stage of the project, it does not take into account the detailed scheduling of all the activities involved in the project. This practice of fixing the duration without detailed scheduling often leads to higher cost of completion of the project than estimated. In addition to the higher costs there is always the potential danger of the quality of the project getting deteriorated due to the rushing of various activities. This problem is often encountered in construction projects where there will be disputes on the delay in the completion as well as the low quality of construction. Another area where the crashing of the project duration is important is the development of new product that needs to be brought to the market before the competitor does to take the first mover advantages. It may be noted that in these cases the market determines the duration of the project for the development and introduction of the product. For instance the chance that the firms using moderate to high technology may lose up to 30 percent of the market share with a delay of six months is a factor that drives such firms to crash their new product development project to be completed within or before the stipulated period. Under those circumstances the firms do not mind the additional costs being incurred in the completion of the project than budgeted as otherwise there is the likelihood they may loose a sizeable market share. With this background this paper presents a report on ways and means for the reduction of the duration of the Whitbread Sail Boat Project which involves the design and construction of a sail boat for the Sail Boat team of the company 'Whitbread' and the training of the crew so that the sail boat constructed could take part in the World Sail Boat Race. Bjorn Ericksen Project Strategy Analysis The project relates to the design and construction of a sail boat and training of crew to enable them to take part in the Whitbread Sail Board Race. The boat race is being conducted every year with countries entering their sail boats in the nine-month Round the World Whitbread Sailboat Race. During the recent races about 14 countries from different parts of the world have entered their sailboats in the race. The sailboard entries for the consecutive years represent the addition of latest technologies and improved human skills over the last year to prove the excellence of technical and human skills in the construction of the sail boat as well as the training of the people involved. Bjorn Ericksen being recognised as the best designer of racing sailboats has taken over as the project in-charge for the designing, building, testing, and training of the crew for the next year's entry of a sail boat representing his country. Bjorn Ericksen assumes the role of the team loader has picked up a chief design engineer and a master helmsman to assist him in getting the sailboard ready for the traditional parade in the Thames River in the UK which event marks the beginning of the race for the year. Two major paths of the project that can run parallelly as identified by Ericksen are the project design and the training of the crew. He came to the decision that these two paths can run without any interdependence. He also considered the proposal of using the last year boat for the training of the crew for the maintenance and other usual tasks associated with a sail boat. He also recognized that using the last year's boat entails a cost which is to be met from the total budget of $ 3.2 million for the conclusion of the Whitbread sailboat project. Thus the major goal of the project is identified as the construction of a wining sail boat and training the crew there of and this goal is to be achieved within a time frame of 45 weeks which marks the inaugural parade of the sailboats participating in the race. Therefore Ericksen is looking for ways to reduce the duration of the project and at the same time to be within the cost of the project. Plan to Reduce Project Duration The activities of the project can be broken down into the following major activities: Design of the sailboat Ordering of the accessories Construction and testing of the sailboat Recruitment and training of crew The designing activity involves preparation of the designs in respect of hull, deck, mast and accessories. The designs are to be made on the basis of the designs of the sail boats participated in the last race as well as studying the designs of entries from other countries. The time estimated for this part of the project by the chief design engineer is six weeks. Once the design process is completed the next stage is the construction of hull and the ordering of mast, sails, and accessories. The estimated time periods for these activities are the hull construction - 12 weeks, ordering and receiving mast - 8 weeks, ordering and receiving of sails - 6 weeks, ordering of accessories and receiving - 15 weeks. Immediately after the construction of the hull, ballast tanks are to be installed which will take 2 weeks and deck can be built in 5 weeks. The treating of the hull can run concurrently within a period of 3 weeks. On completion of the decks and receipt of accessories in two weeks time the mast and sails can be installed. Installation of accessories can be completed in six weeks. After the completion of the construction and installation of accessories testing of the sail boat has to be undertaken, which may take about 5 weeks The preparation of the cost estimates is expected to take about two weeks time. The process of recruitment and training is estimated by the master helmsman. Apart from the selection of the crew there is the requirement of crew equipment which needs to be ordered. The training of the crew can be undertaken using the old vessel. Once the crew equipment is received and the training program of the crew in the old vessel is complete the training of the crew can be started in the new vessel which will take about 10 weeks. The time estimates by the master helmsman is presents for approval by Ericksen. The cost estimates include the operating cost of $ 4000 per week for keeping the old vessel. The other costs are the maintenance cost of $ 6000 per week for the crew maintenance on the new vessel. In view of the fact there is only 45 weeks left for the speed boat race to begin, it became necessary for Bjorn, the project leader to estimate the total cost and the duration of the project so that he could be sure of the project being completed within the cost and time estimates as determined. For this purpose the chief design engineer and the master helmsman put their time and cost ideas together, and brought out the following cost and time schedule for the information of the project manager. In the table they also included the crash time and cost so that the decision on the alternatives possible can be taken to speed up the progress of the project. Bjorn was confronted with the issue of reduction of the duration of the project. There is the 'Rule of Thumb' method for crashing the project which advocates reducing the length of the critical paths. (Crashing the Project) The following are some of the ways in which the reduction of the project duration can be attempted. 1. Adding Resources: The most popular and sought after method of reducing project duration is to assign additional staff and resources to the project. It also involves the provision of additional equipments to handle different activities of the project. However this method has the limitation of the amount of speed the new staff can gain. 2. Outsourcing Project Work: Another common method is to outsource some activities of the project outsourced to subcontractors. It is possible that subcontractor may have access to superior technology so that the activities subcontracted may be speeded up. 3. Scheduling Overtime: Instead of employing additional employees it is also possible that the existing workforce may be used to work overtime. This way the total duration of the project can be shortened. The only disadvantage of working over time is intangible costs like divorce, burnout, and labour turnover. 4. Establish a Core Team: Another way to speed up the project duration is to form a core team which will be assigned full time to the completion of the project. In addition there are other methods like fast - tracking and critical chain which will facilitate the decision making in respect of the reducing the project duration. The following table represents the likely cost and time estimates under normal conditions as well as with the crashing of various activities. Table: Likely Cost and Time Estimates under Normal and Crash conditions Activity Normal Time Normal Cost Crash Time Crash Cost A Design 6 40 4 $ 160 B Build hull 12 1,000 10 1,400 C Install ballast tanks 2 100 2 100 D Order mast 8 100 7 140 E Order sails 6 40 6 40 F Order accessories 15 600 13 800 G Build deck 5 200 5 200 H Coat hull 3 40 3 40 I Install accessories 6 300 5 400 J Install mast and sails 2 40 1 80 K Test 5 60 4 100 L Sea trials 8 200 7 $450 M Select crew 6 10 5 20 N Secure housing 3 30 3 30 0 Select crew equipment 2 10 2 10 P Order crew equipment 5 30 5 30 Q Routine sail and maintenance 15 40 12 130 R Crew maintenance training 10 100 9 340 S Initial sail training 7 50 5 350 Based on the above time and cost estimates the following critical path was prepared for the information of the project manager. From the critical path and the resultant path it is observed that completing the project following the critical path without crash time would take about 52 weeks. If the project follows the critical path Start -> M - > N-> Q->R->S->L The project can be completed with the crashing of the activities M, Q, R and S then the total time is 45 weeks. But in this case the total cost would be $ 3.63 million just above the projected cost of $ 3.62 million. Critical path Start O 6 6 A M 12 8 6 15 3 B D E F N ($4000/wk until K) 3 2 15 2 H C 10 10 10 Q O 5 2 2 5 G 10 10 10 P 2 R($6000/wk until L) J 6 10 I S 5 8 K 8 L While using the revised critical path with crashing, the cost from A to K needs to be summed up for finding the normal cost which is $ 2520. The cost of crashing the activities L, M', N, O, P, Q', R', S' is equal to $ 1110. Therefore the total cost would be 2520 +1110 =3630 = $3.63 million, which exceeds the budget of $ 3.62 million. Project Closure Approach There is the latest idea of reduction of project time by using Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) which avoids the traditional methods. However due to the nature of the project the crashing of the project duration can be attempted on the training of crew and testing of the new vessels as there would be no scope for reduction of time in the design and construction stages. From the above analysis of the reduction in the project duration it is observed that the later part of the project covering the testing of the vessel and the recruitment and training part of the crew members could be crashed, subject to the incurring of the additional cost. The activities that can be crashed include L Sea trials M Select crew N Secure housing O Select crew equipment P Order crew equipment Q Routine sail and maintenance R Crew maintenance training S Initial sail training All the above activities should be crashed in order to close the project at an early date. In the case of this project of design and construction of the speed boat and the training of the crew for the vessel to take part in the next race it is crucially important that the project is completed within the stipulated duration of 45 weeks, as otherwise the country will loose the chance of participating in the Whitbread Sail Boat Race for the ensuing year. In order to meet the objective of making the boat ready for the race the project manager had only a few options available for crashing the time. Due to the nature of the project he cannot put additional resources in training the employees except that he has to use more of the old vessels for increased number of weeks training to the crew. This would entail additional cost for training while crashing the time required for training of the crew. "At a very high-level, project costs are estimated by looking at labor and non-labor items". (Tom Mochal) "Some projects are relatively straightforward to cost but most are not. Even simple figures like the cost per man/hour of labour can be difficult to calculate and in often approximations are used." (Nick Jenkins, 2006) As regards the subcontracting of the works, the project manager has already placed orders for the manufacture of certain components and accessories and in this way he had already exhausted the option available for speeding up the project. Similarly it is also not possible to appoint another core team to speed up the project in view of the nature of works involved, as there was the necessity for putting additional time in the construction of the boat as the possibility for crashing existed only in this activity. Therefore it follows that the duration of the project of design, construction, and testing of the speed boat can be achieved by following the crashing of the later part of the activities of the project at an extra cost. Conclusion The completion of any project within the estimated completion period has always posed problems for the project manager. It is the skill and ability of the project manager to adopt the various techniques available to reduce the project duration so that the project goals in terms of time and cost are achieved efficiently. The project manager depending on the external forces operating on the project has to make a tradeoff between the time of completion and the cost of crashing certain activities in order to improve the completion time. There are various methods like employing additional workforce, requiring the existing employees to work overtime, subcontracting some of the activities relating to the project and several other methods available for reducing the project duration. In the instant project of design and construction of the speed boat the project manager has decided to adopt the method of crashing the activities relating to the testing of the vessel and training of the new crew which is the quite viable and probable solution for completing the project within the stipulated period. References Crashing the Project Retrieved on November, 08 2007 from Nick Jenkins (2006) A Project Management Primer Retrieved November 08 2007 from Project Management Free Management Library Retrieved November 08 2007 from Tom Mochal Project Management Tips and Techniques - Estimating Duration and cost Pipeline News Letter Retrieved November 08 2007 from Read More