Woody 2000 the Project Proposed Herein Involves

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 and application of MS Project 2007 for projects of this nature. 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 chapter from The PMBOK Guide indicates that, "When a schedule activity cannot be estimated with a reasonable degree of confidence, the work within the schedule activity is decomposed into more detail." In the event that the Design Reviews and Development Lead elements have been completed and it is still not possible to provide estimates to several activities, the Design element needs to be revisited and refined (Dinsmore & Cabanis-Brewin 2006).

Scope of the work. The scope of this project will extend from project commission through completion and will include commissioning and start-up reports; equipment operation manuals; equipment manuals; production and maintenance department project hand-over; punch list and follow-up work; and a final report. POS will be developed and managed based on the detailed project schedule generated by MS Project.