Draw A Project Network That Includes All Activities

draw A Project Network That Includes All The Activities2 Calculate

1. Draw a project network that includes all the activities. 2. Calculate the start and finish times for each activity and determine the minimum number of weeks for completing the project. Find the critical set of activities for the project.

Activity Designation Duration (weeks) Early Start (ES) Late Start (LS) Early Finish (EF) Late Finish (LF) Slack= LS - ES P1-Product Specs A P2-Hardware Specs B P3-Software Specs C P4-Market Research D S1-Supplier Hardware Specs E S2-Software Supplier Specs F S3-Market research G D1-Circuit Design H D2-Battery Design I D3-Display Design J D4-Outer Cover Design K D5-User Interface Design L D6-Camera Design M D7-Functionality N I1-Hardware Integration O I2-Software Integration P I3-Prototype Testing Q V1-Vendor Selection R V2-Contract Negotiation S Minimum number of weeks needed to complete project is 36. Critical path = A-C-F-L-N-H-O-Q-S

3. Identify slack in the activities not on the project critical path.

Activity Designation Early Start (ES) Late Start (LS) Early Finish (EF) Late Finish (LF) Slack= LS - ES P2-Hardware Specs B P4-Market Research D S1-Supplier Hardware Specs E S3-Market research G D2-Battery Design I D3-Display Design J D4-Outer Cover Design K D6-Camera Design M I2-Software Integration P V1-Vendor Selection R. Your boss would like you to suggest changes that could be made to the project that would significantly shorten it. As the duration of the project is directly dependent on the duration of critical path, I would make the critical path shorter; or rather “crash” the project by selecting those activities on the critical path with the least cost per time ratio.

Unfortunately, we have not been given enough information to properly put together a Time-Cost Trade-Off procedure since we do not have the costs of any of the activities. Had we known the costs, we could follow the five steps in crashing the project, which are: a. To prepare a CPM-type network diagram and list the normal costs (NC), normal times (NT), crash times (CT), and crash costs (CC) on the diagram. b. I would determine the cost per unit of time by using the formula: Slope = (CC-NC)/(NT-CT) c. I would then compute the critical path d. Then I would shorten the critical path at the activity that cost the least. e. Finally I would make a plot of the direct, indirect, and total-cost curves in order to find the minimum-cost schedule I think I would need to reiterate to the boss that shortening the project will not necessarily save the company money, since there is a trade-off between the two.

4. You have been asked to study the impact of making two changes to how the project is organized. The first change involves using dedicated teams that would work strictly in parallel on the activities in each subproject P (project specifications) the team would work, on P1, P2, P3, and P4 all parallel. In other words, there would be no precedence relationships within a subproject—all tasks within a subproject would be work at the same time and each would take the same amount of time as originally specified. With this new design, all the subprojects would be done sequentially with P done first, then S, D, I, and finally V. What would be the expected impact on how long it would take to complete the project if this change were made?

5. The second change to consider would be to select the suppliers during subproject P and have them work directly with the dedicated teams as described in step 4. this would involve adding an additional activity to subproject P called supplier selection and contract negotiation (P5) with a duration of 12 weeks. This new activity would be done in parallel with P1, P2, P3, and P4. Subproject S and V would be eliminated from the project. What would be the expected impact on how long it would take to complete the project if this additional change were made?

6. Evaluate the impact of making these changes using criteria other than just the time to complete the project. Do you think it would be best to try to make these changes in how the firm runs this and future cell phone design projects?

7. What was the most complex project you have been involved in? Give examples of the following as they pertain to the project: the work breakdown structure, task, subtasks, and work package. Were you on the critical path? Did it have a good project manager?