Does the Matter of Success Come Down to Execution - Term Paper Example

Los Angeles Industrial Field Trip Plan Executive Summary This report is an outline of the planning procedure for the five-day university industrial trip in May 2014. It covers the planning process from January all the way to May 2014. The report considers budget, time and human capital requirements and suggests strategies to cover for strains in the said resources. The report also covers contingency planning and provides tools for measurement of the effectiveness of the plan and performance of execution. In all this report is a detailed, comprehensive instruction set of what to plan for and how to plan for it. Introduction This is not a small project. The duration for lodging, the number of field visits and the probable number of partakers are all quite excessive for a usual university industrial visit. Meeting the requirements of organizing and managing the activity are not a job for a team of a few people. From the administration executives to the student organizers everyone has to get involved if we want this event to be successful. In addition to this we have to connect to a lot of professional individuals and organizations, and work in tandem with them to manage the occasion. However if the planned event gets to completion without any major hitches it will certainly go down the history book of this institution and perhaps into some local newspapers as well. Goals and Tasks There is a wealth of objectives from an academic standpoint that can be achieved by the organization of this trip. An obvious one is giving the students, and the faculty for that matter, a chance to bring fun and pragmatism into their standard academic curriculums; a chance to link the outside world to the sober and unidirectional outlook of the scholarly learning process. So building students’ interest into their academic curriculums and letting them experience and see and take interest in their potential future roles in society. The club wants to make an effort to make this kind of trip an annual event and push the administration of the university to increase its focus on allowing the students to form a link between industrial practices and their scholarly knowledge. This trip will be a chance to acquaint the students with professional life. These professional lives are important for the students because they are of people from the students’ future professions. Students can only wonder about what would become of them once they graduate until they have seen it as clearly as the organizers of this trip want them to see. Many students will have a chance to meet with people who were once in the students’ place and who the students might aspire to be like in the future. Not all aspects of professional life the students get to see will be uplifting though some will be but the important thing is that all will be very true and relevant. The participants will be acquainted with standard industrial practices that are common to all industries wherever the students go in the future, like the implementation of Standard Operating Procedures at work sites. The students will also get to see what these SOPs are for companies of their particular fields. Similarly the participants of the trip will gain knowledge about how issues in industrial processes are identified and dealt with, what kind of problems can and do arise and the universal principles and tricks of the trade that are always to be kept in mind. We want to show the academia what the common industrial processes are in the local industry, what operational standards are used around the world and how machinery and services are acquired and maintained and where their academic curricula may be lacking in terms of stressing on industry-relevant topics and complying with the level of technological advancement in the industrial work place. For students of engineering and other technical disciples it will be a chance to examine the machinery they might want to study about in their course curricula and research about like piping and flow control systems, automation software and hardware etc. Importantly, we want the students to realize the importance of safety at workplace. For this we also hope to organize a few Health, Safety and Environment training sessions by HSE experts of different industries and arrange for demonstrations by HSE departments of some of the companies we hope to be visiting in the trip. Also at display will be evidence and remnants of actual hazards and participants will have a chance to interact with volunteering industrial workers who have been disabled due to industrial disasters and mismanagement. In addition we hope to make students understand the dynamics of work-related stress and the significance of displaying maturity and building positive relations with fellow employees and other people at the workplace. In this regard as well, we will arrange for presentations by industry people on workplace violence. People in this trip will get to view firsthand how corporate governance structures are and how the different chains of command work. This will potentially be a buoying experience for those who have corporate dreams and careerist mindsets. One of the main areas of focus for us is using the opportunity to build students’ relationships with the companies’ workplaces and professional graduate employees. With this we also hope to increase the chances of the students of our university, and of future students as well, of qualifying for sought-after internships and freshman career opportunities. It will be an honour for members of the club to be organizing an event of this level. It will greatly help to hone the organizers’ managerial skills and it will build them relationships with people related and not related to the university. Also it will help the reputation and prestige of the student club, in fact it will be the highlight event in the recent history of the club and it might well be regarded as one of the most active and reputable societies in the university. Last but not least, it is one of our objectives to strengthen the university’ relationship with the corporate executives and to make a name for the institution’s association with the industry. In the process we hope the Industrial Liaison Office will be able to properly merge into the local industrial fraternity. The important tasks to be performed to make this trip a success should be treated as challenges by organizing members of the club and of the faculty and administration. Firstly we have to try to have as many activities in the trip sponsored by relevant organizations as possible. For this a team should be constituted for contacting brand managers and giving them presentations that show how their participation in the trip could be beneficial for them and what help they will be providing to the educational institution by getting involved. Before we decide how much funds from sponsors are sufficient we have to confirm the number of aspirants for the industrial trip. For this we will give out a memo to the faculty asking for staff interested in going as guides for the students to convey their affirmations to the chief organizer. Only then will we be able to take a survey of how many students will be willing to go and the total number of students will be limited by the number of faculty staff members going to the trip as only ten students per member will be allowed. Afterwards the organizing students with the help of the Registrar Office will contact alumni of the institution who are working in the industry in Los Angeles and try to arrange for them to draft out instructions of which industrial processes should be visited as the alumni will also have an idea of the students’ course curricula, the alumni may also suggest from work experience which work places in Los Angeles are best to be visited by prospective industrial workers. We will look to arrange for a catering service for the trip if the budget allows but certainly the student club’s resources will not able to support all meals for the five days of the trip for the participants. Arrangements have to made for accommodation as well based on the number of trip-goers but for so many people moving to a place we will be unable to arrange for lodging at the time so these arrangements must be made well in advance. The quality of lodging services will depend on the cost of lodging and almost certainly people will have to share individual facilities. With the help of the Industrial Liaison Office the club will make arrangements for entertaining of the travellers by the companies. Soon after places to be visited have been agreed upon a committee of faculty staff and club members will rehearse the whole trip to make final adjustments in the visiting plan. We hope to be able to arrange lectures by volunteer faculty members on the academic topics relevant to the industrial processes that are to be examined. Finally the logistics for the trip are to be provided for. We hope to be able to use some of the University’s transport facilities as well as free transportation by a sponsor. Of course this will very likely be in addition to commercial bus transportation arranged using the allocated budget. Resources So far we only have three thousand dollars in prospective confirmed funding for the trip which may prove to be insufficient if the number of trip-goers exceeds our estimation. However we are very hopeful that we will be able to acquire some sponsoring in the form of money, logistics or even catering for the trip. University administration has vowed to provide 1 bus taken from the campus shuttle service for the trip free of charge and may provide us with another one for a small fee if the number of people going for the trip is large. One area where we are well resourced is human capital. The club member students are very anxious to get involved into making the trip happen and it is without doubt that many volunteers will join in when the planning and arrangements for the trip begin. The university does own any property in the Los Angeles industrial district however we have been green-signalled for provision of vacant hostel accommodation by Godsend University which lies in the area. \ Network Diagram Fig. 1 Network diagram Fig. 2 Gantt chart Risk Assessment and Contingency Planning During planning, we will have to take into account any risks and potential financial or physical hazards that may arise before or during the trip. One of the main concerns will be provision of proper health services for the trip. To this end there should be a first aid kit in every bus or other form of transport and two medical practitioners, volunteers or hired, should be arranged for. Another cause for concern is the unreliability of the old university buses. Also the administration may hesitate to lend a bus or two for the trip as it is a long trip, hence cheap commercial transport should be booked in advanced if necessary because it will not be easy to arrange for a five day transport contract on the day of the trip for a fair price. Also the organizers should set up an emergency fund and chip in with their own money and that of donators. This is only to be used if required and the money will be returned to contributors if the plan goes smoothly. Lastly, the club members have pledged that they will make a commitment that if the anything untoward happens with regard to accommodation in Los Angeles, the members will spend the nights in the vehicles with the trip if required. Performance Measurement The learning objectives of the trip can be assessed by taking a survey of the students about the learning outcomes of the industrial visit after the trip. Also a cost and time resources analysis of the planning process can be performed by using the following formula of Project Management: BCWS: How much work (in person-hours) you planned to have accomplished at a given point in time. ACWP: How much work (in person-hours) you have actually spent at a given point in time. BCWP: The value (in person-hours) in terms of your base budget of what you have accomplished at a given point in time. Cost Performance Index = BCWP/ ACWP Schedule Performance Index = BCWP/ BCWS A Cost Performance Index (CPI) value greater than one indicates good progress and a project inside the allocated budget in terms of earned value. A CPI value of less than one indicates that the project has overspent for the amount of work which has been done. A Schedule Performance Index (SPI) value of greater than one suggests that the project is ahead of schedule, and an SPI value of less than one suggests that the project is behind schedule. Conclusions The matter of success ultimately comes down to execution. No matter how good the plan is lacklustre implementation of the plan can still create problems. However there are tough challenges in planning too that are already quite obvious, like the limited budget. A lot depends on how much interest corporate brands take in this event. But even with limited resources this trip can go ahead with a light arrangement if the contingency factors described in this report are properly adhered to. Read More