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Woody 2000
The project proposed herein involves identifying optimal approaches to the expansion of the existing workspace and installation of a production train for The Custom Woodworking Company (hereinafter alternatively "Woody's" or "the company"), a custom furniture and millwork manufacturer headquartered in British Columbia. The company's longstanding reputation for high quality products has created a need for this additional workspace and more efficient manufacturing processes.
Overview of Plan and Implementation
The overarching objective of this project will be four-fold as follows:
Identify key players and their respective roles in the project;
Determine how MS Project can be used to support and oversee the project's progress;
c.
Construct a finishing shop featuring additional compressor capacity; and,
b.
Install a semi-automated production train.
3.
Nature of the Proposed Research
The nature of the proposed research will be to identify optimal approaches to using MS Project 2007 for project management applications using the sources of information described below. The proposed study will also evaluate the potential impact of this initiative on the company's commitments that are already in progress (Seider 2006).
4.
Sources of Information
Data collection is an important component of the knowledge acquisition phase and information can be collected from a wide range of sources (Turban & Aronson 2001). Therefore, the proposed study will draw on vendor presentations and guidelines, peer-reviewed journal articles and other scholarly sources concerning the applicability...
This approach is congruent with the guidance provided by Fraenkel and Wallen (2001, p. 48) that, "Researchers usually dig into the literature to find out what has already been written about the topic they are interested in investigating. Both the opinions of experts in the field and other research studies are of interest."
5.
Important Concepts and Techniques to be Applied
There are a number of important concepts and techniques underlying MS Project that make it highly suitable for projects of this nature. For instance, according to Dinsmore and Cabanis-Brewin (2006), there are several project management scheduling techniques available, but MS Project's Critical Path is among the more widely used for this purpose. In addition, the definition of related activities required for completion of the project will be completed using a project scheduling tool such as MS Project which will facilitate accomplishing the remaining tasks (Dinsmore & Cabanis-Brewin 2006). According to the vendor, "Project Management is often seen as a complex activity. MS Office Project 2007 makes things easier as a tool to effective project management" (Purushothaman 2013, para. 2).
Not all practitioners agree that MS Project is the best product for the purpose, though. For example, Seider (2006, p. 43) emphasizes that, "Project management software (e.g., MS-Project) provides some capacity management tools, but is clumsy to use and not helpful in communicating results to operations management." Therefore, the proposed study will evaluate effective project management techniques using MS Project such as the Time Management feature. In this regard, the Time Management…
Bibliography
Dinsmore, PC & Cabanis-Brewen, J (2006) The AMA Handbook of Project Management. New York: AMACOM.
Fraenkel, JR & Wallen, NE (2001) Educational Research: A Guide to the Process. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Hibe, JM (2004, August). 'Section Editor's Notes.' The American Statistician, vol. 58, no. 3
Purushothaman, A (2007) Microsoft Office Project 2007 Tutorial. Available at http://www.slide share.net/anilp78/microsoft-office-project-2007-tutorial.
Woody 2000 project [Online]. Available from: http://www.maxwideman.com/
Woody 2000 -- Project Outline The Woody 2000 project represents an industrial facilities expansion for a growing small-to-midsize (SME) business that produces custom furniture and cabinets. This SME, The Custom Woodworking Company, has designated a seventeen million dollar project budget with the goal of adding an equivalent of twenty five percent to their existing production floor space as well as introducing some modern equipment with some level of automation. The project
Woody's Project Management: The Custom Woodworking Company is relatively a medium sized cabinet and furniture making firm whose headquarters are at Industrial Estates, BC. The founder began the company in 1954 following his apprenticeship as a cabinet maker before moving to the current location in 1959 together with his wife. Woody's currently manufactures custom furniture, typical kitchen and bathroom cabinets, and various wholesaler or retailer furniture products. Following its continual growth
For example, the company did create a monthly cash flow chart for the modernization project. However, this flow chart was not regularly re-evaluated over the course of the project on a regular and timely basis, once delays became a problem. There was no talk of scaling back or reformulating the approach, once it became clear that the project was going to be more expensive and take longer than anticipated.
When Leadbetter was made aware of these issues, he contacted only the subcontractors working on individual aspects of the project, attempting to micromanage without coordinating through the project leaders at the two major companies that had been hired to complete this project (EID and S&P) (Project Management Case Study 2000). All told, the project that had been slated to take a year to complete took over two years, ran into
Even a good plan cannot account for all subcontracting-related delays. Intuitively it might seem that a plan of such magnitude could not be completed on time, at least not with so many subcontractors. When in doubt, common sense should 'win out' when allowing for delays. The only conceivable way for a good baseline plan to have accounted for more contingencies within the project would be to work with all subcontractors
Setting specific time tables for events, and having a clear understanding of how long each part of a project entails -- and who is responsible for overseeing that phase of the project -- is essential. Many delays could have been easily overcome, simply by ensuring that responsible staff members did not go on vacation at critical times. How the organization will benefit from making changes When the project began, the organization