Business Management Techniques for Engineers - Essay Example

?Project Plan – Introduction of New Technology Introduction This project plan is aimed to discuss the various elements that are involved during the completion of a project. The assumed project plan is established with the intent of introducing a new technology in the manufacturing environment an engineering company. The Chief Technology Officer is the ultimate person to whom the progress of the whole project will be reported. It would be the responsibility of the CTO to conduct the whole project and report the final outcomes of the project to the Board of Directors of the company. The whole progress of the project is discussed as under. Feasibility Study This hypothetical project plan consists of various activities. In order to complete this project, every activity is of utmost importance but there are some activities that can be avoided. The details of those activities are discussed later. This project basically consists of 17 activities, out of which 5 activities can be avoided. CTO of the company will assign five sub-committees, in order to bring in the different ideas from various personnel involved at the planning stage. This stage of the project is named as activity A. All of five committees would be assigned to prepare a feasibility report as per their own understanding and knowledge of the project. These four stages would be entitled as activity B, C, D, E and F. Selection of Appropriate Feasibility Study After the submission of detailed five feasibility reports, CTO would evaluate every report and discuss it with the CEO of the company. CTO in collaboration with CEO will then approve particular sub committees’ feasibility report and will show his consent in commencing the project. These activities are referred as activities G and H. CTO along with his/her team will then decide whether the internal human resource of the company will be necessary enough to complete the project or external hiring should be conducted if the project completion requires special types of skilled workers. Internal human resource utilization activity is referred as activity I and activity pertaining to external hiring of highly specialized workers is referred as activity J. Human Resource Requirements Since the company is highly specialized in conducting other heavy manufacturing projects, therefore, as such there seems no requirement of hiring specialized outside workforce as the company already has various project specialists and technicians who can perform their tasks during this project as well. The decision in favor of capitalizing the internal human resource of the company is referred as activity K. Financial Resources After this decision, the financial resources of the company will be sought in order to make funding arrangements of this project. The finance department of the company will analyze as how to finance this project whether by raising equity or debt or utilizing company’s own internally generated funds. After the establishment of funding resources, the resources will be allocated to different areas of this project. The primary allocation of financial resources involves the payment of salaries and wages to the project workers, procurement of the necessary equipment and tools, purchasing of specialized software packages relating to that particular technology etc. This financial resource activity is referred to as activity L. Procurement Procurement of necessary equipment and tools to be used in the project would be made in the next stage of the project after allotment of allocated funds. These funds will be utilized till the end of the project if any further tools are required at the later stage of the project. Purchase of highly sophisticated project is also one of the areas in which funds would be used. The company would purchase a customized software package with different suits. Appropriate training of that software would also be provided to the specific personnel with those dedicated funds. This procurement activity is referred to as activity M of the project. Technology Implementation After the core prerequisite activities of human resources, financial resources and procurement, the key activity is that of implementing the new technology in the company. This technology implementation phase would be highly important because any small irregularity in this phase can deteriorate the progress of the project. This implementation activity is denoted as activity N. Final Testing The testing activity would then be conducted which would ensure whether the implementation of the technology is achieving the desired results or not. In case of any discrepancy or issue, the technical department would take care of that issue and fix the problem accordingly. This would be called as activity O. Project Approval After the testing stage, any modification in the implementation of the technology would be made and then the whole technology would undergo stress testing with full load. After completion of stress testing, the results of the technology would be evaluated and then the final approval of introduction of new technology would be given by CTO and Board of Directors. This activity is referred to as activity P. Performance Review The last activity of the project is actually not an activity rather an ongoing phase of quality control and review of performance of the new technology. This phase will continue till the dismantling of the project. This activity is referred to as activity Q of the project. Precedence Chart & Table The progress of this whole project is briefly highlighted through a table in which the estimated time of every activity is listed as well as preceding diagram which presents the chronological order of every activity. Tasks Activity Time Early Start Early Finish Late Start Late Finish Total Float Project 93 A Idea Development 4 0 4 0 4 0 B Feasibility Report 5 4 9 8 13 4 C Feasibility Report 4 4 8 9 13 5 D Feasibility Report 8 4 12 5 13 1 E Feasibility Report 6 4 10 7 13 3 F Feasibility Report 9 4 13 4 13 0 G Report Analysis 13 13 26 13 26 0 H Report Approval 8 26 34 26 34 0 I Internal HR 7 34 41 34 41 0 J External HR 6 34 40 35 41 1 K Decision – HR 8 41 49 41 49 0 L Financial Resources 13 49 62 49 62 0 M Procurement 9 62 71 62 71 0 N Installation 4 71 75 71 75 0 O Testing 4 75 79 75 79 0 P Final Approval 9 79 88 79 88 0 Q Performance Review 5 88 93 88 93 0 Read More