Project Planning and Scheduling Techniques - Example

Project Planning and Scheduling Techniques Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission: Introduction The task at hand is the refurbishment of a room currently not in use into a storeroom for the company. This requires some activities which will be detailed below so as to complete the refurbishment. The deliverable is a plan and schedule for the project detailing the resources required, time and cost of resources. Resource list The list of material resources is provided below. The detailed cost of these resources will be provided in a different section. 1. 19mmx30m Fire Hose 2. 100mm x 100mm Softwood 3. 10 x 2440 x1220 Chipboard 4. Nails and adhesives 5. Long life Battery Powered Optical Smoke Alarm 6. Sprinkler Water Supply 7. 2 Double florescent fitting 8. 3 Florescent bulbs 9. 16 Liter Paint 10. Painting materials (Roller, brushes, sleeves, covers) 11. Floor covering material 12. Garbage skip Work breakdown structure Below is the work breakdown structure of the project detailing each major activity and the tasks to be accomplished within those activities. Item Id Description 1 Refurbish the store room 1.1 Clear the room 1.1.1 Order a skip 1.1.2 Hire cleaning help 1.1.3 Clean room 1.2 Measure Room 1.2.1 Measure total size of the room in meters 1.3 Calculate Material 1.3.1 Calculate wood 1.3.1.1 Calculate total softwood required for uprights and cross bearers for shelve support 1.3.1.2 Calculate total chipboard required for the shelves 1.3.1.3 Calculate approximate joining material is required i.e nails, adhesives, etc 1.3.1.4 Calculate time for joinery labor 1.3.2 Estimate Fire detection and sprinkler system installation 1.3.2.1 Calculate piping required 1.3.2.2 Calculate water supply pump needed 1.3.2.3 Calculate installation labor required 1.3.3 Calculate Lighting 1.3.3.1 Calculate new light fitting materials required 1.3.3.2 Calculate time of electrician labor 1.3.4 Painting Estimation 1.3.4.1 Calculate total paint needed for Walls and ceiling 1.3.4.2 Calculate total paint needed for shelves 1.3.4.3 Calculate time required for paint labor 1.3.5. Floor covering estimation 1.3.5.1 Calculate floor material required. 1.3.5.2 Calculate the floor covering labor 1.4 Calculate cost of project 1.4.1 Calculate cost of materials 1.4.2 Calculate cost of labor 1.5 Clear the room 1.5.1 Order skip 1.5.2 Hire clearing labor 1.5.3 Clear the room 1.6 Fitting the shelves 1.6.1 Fitting the uprights 1.6.2 Fitting the cross-bearing 1.6.3 Fitting the shelves 1.7 Painting the room 1.7.1 Order the painting supplies 1.7.2 Hire a painter 1.7.3 Set up the room for painting 1.7.4 Paint the room 1.8 Fitting the fire alarm and sprinkler system 1.8.1 Fit the piping 1.8.2 Fit the fire detection system 1.8.2.1 Calculate position of fire detection system 1.8.2.2 Fit the fir detection system 1.8.3 Fit the fire sprinklers 1.9 Room Lighting 1.9.1 Order the lighting material 1.9.2 Fit Lighting 2.0 Clear the room 2.1 Remove extra unused materials 2.2 Clean the dirt Time Scheduling To be able to provide the time line for the task, a network diagram will be provided, in reference to the precedence list, detailing the critical path, float time and free time calculated from the results. A Gantt chart created on MS project will be attached to the document Precedence list Below is the precedence list of task to be accomplished with their durations and immediate predecessors. Activity Name Immediate predecessor Duration (hours) A Measure the room -- 2 B Clear the room A 4 C Calculate material A 6 D Order and delivery of materials C 32 E Fit the lights D 8 F Fit the fire system E 16 G Fit the shelves F 40 H Painting the room G 24 I Fit floor covering H 16 J Clean the room I 3 Network diagram The diagram below is a network diagram that shows the time used for each task. It will be used in calculation of the free float The Critical path is: ACDEFGHIJ Activity Name Earliest start time Latest Finish time A Measure the room 0 2 B Clear room 2 6 C Calculate material 2 8 D Order and delivery of materials 8 40 E Fit the lights 40 48 F Fit the fire system 48 64 G Fit the shelves 64 104 H Painting the room 104 128 I Fit floor covering 128 144 J Clean the room 144 147 Project Cost Estimates The section below gives the cost estimated for the different items to be used in the project. Item Units Quantity Rate () Total 100mm x 100mm Softwood Uprights M 22 5.30  116.60 Cross bearers M 70 5.30  371.00 10 x 2440 x1220 Chipboard Pcs 33 12.25  404.25 Joiner labor day 5 250 1,250.00 Long life Battery Powered Optical Smoke Alarm – Kidde KE10Y29 Pcs 1 16.00  16.00 19mmx30m Fire Hose pcs 1 48.00  48.00 British Standard – BS EN 12845:2004+A2:2009 Fixed Firefighting Systems. Automatic Sprinkler Systems. Design, Installation And Maintenance M2 1 273.49  273.49 Sprinkler Water Supply pcs 1 700  700.00 Paint 2.5 L tin 6 11  66.00 Painting brush pcs 2 5  10.00 Painter day 2 300  600.00 Floor covering M2 50 11  550.00 Skip pcs 1 120  120.00 Cleaning labor hour 7 20  140.00 Total 4,665.34 Cost and effort reduction techniques To reduce the overall cost of the projects, some measure can be taken which will allow reduction of slack time which contributes to cost of the project and cost of material purchase. These techniques are directly related to human resource management and overall project management. First, you need to constantly audit the project. This implies that at any given time, you should know the position you are in terms of the budget and milestone accomplishment. This allows a project manager to bring back a project to its original course financially if some new deliverables come up in between which were not planned for. (Nichols, 2010) Utilization of in-house resources is also a key technique of cost reduction within a project. If a company has employees who can perform tasks which are otherwise set for outsourced individuals, in-house experts should take precedence in the list. However, a balance between cost of in-house labor and outsourced labor should be reached. If a task exists which would be accomplished at lower overall cost using outsourced labor, considering external labor is acceptable (Lock, 2007). For example, cost of clearing the rooms would be averted if in-house employees will be used to do so in the store-room refurbishing project. Benefits of project management packages Project management software packages such as Microsoft project, JIRA and Projectmanager.com are computer or internet based software that provides project management facilities. They help in planning scheduling, issue tracking, resource management, and document management among other functionalities. They contain a set of logical commands that have been predetermined and set to automatically compute and produce results on variables provide. This automation reduces the amount of time spent in coming up with charts, work schedules or calculations on a project estimates and at the same time provides accurate results with reduced human errors. These software packages are used in tracking projects with quality information provided at a particular time. It helps in financial control of the project since once can track each cost and estimate future costs while keeping in mind various variables and uncertainties. These types of software are also a valuable source of information which can be used in decision making (Woods, 2012). References Lock, D. (2007). Project management (9th ed.). Aldershot, England: Gower. Nichols, C. (2010). IT Solutions Blog. 5 Ways to Reduce Project Costs with Project Management. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from http://www.unitiv.com/it-solutions-blog/bid/37243/5-Ways-to-Reduce-Project-Costs-with-Project-Management Woods, M. (2012). 10 Benefits of a Project Management Software System. Cora Systems. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from http://corasystems.com/blog/2012/05/23/10-benefits-of-a-project-management-software-system/ Read More