Essay On Project Management For Technology

Project Management

Project management is broadly defined as the execution of organized and well planned set of activities to successfully accomplish a project. Project is basically as a set of one-time planned efforts performed to achieve specific outcomes .For instance new computerized system or building a plaza .
Project management may also include managing a project of developing a quality management system which the case is recommended in this report for Home Rob PLC. The project will include development of all the relevant aspects covered as milestones that would be required to develop the new quality management system.
Project has a well-defined commencement and it has to come to an end in a given time. Project has strategically allocated resources and a comprehensive scope to achieve the ultimate objective and has temporary existence. Every project has unique goals that are accomplished through explicitly designed operational activities. Project is not a set of routine activities so the team working in a project is mostly comprised of experts who have diverse knowledge and have different backgrounds. Sometimes the teams involved in executing operational activities of a project are grouped together from multiple geographies and different organizations. The development of a sophisticated software for upgraded business practices, bridge or a building a construction infrastructure , relief activities after a catastrophe, business expansion in new markets, these all are different projects. A project must be skillfully managed to acquire on-budget, on-time results as well as the learning and integration required by the organization .

Project Management System for Home Rob PLC

Since Home Rob PLC is an engineering company therefore the aspects of engineering project management are required to be undertaken for the project management of the project recommended in this report. Engineering project management is mainly based on the ability to be on time and well organized. The best possible way of ensuring that the project teams would meet the goals on time is by gauging in advance that how much time is needed by each step for its efficient completion. Review techniques such as (PERT) and project evaluation are used to precisely determine the required time frame. These techniques involve detailed mapping of essential activities that should be necessarily done and then sequencing and classifying each event based on its importance to the project completion.
The project manager of an engineering project delineates the maximum as well as the minimum time required for the completion of each event from beginning to end with the help of PERT or CPM (Critical Path Method). A thorough analysis defines the dependency of events and which event must be completed before the other event in critical path. This is a workable and an effective method and it combines the workflows with the time requirements and therefore offer fluctuation for certain events and limitation for other few events. The main purpose of this method is to keep the perfect balance of the project intact.
The project management system for Home Rob PLC will consist of developing a project plan and executing it to achieve the recommendations mentioned in the recommended quality management report. The end result of the project will be a new quality management system that will result in following: -

Workers will always follow the instructions mentioned in the Standard Operating Procedures for all the routine processes

Worker will consult the SOP on regular basis and will not only rely of the knowledge they have in their mind

Worker will be regularly trained in order to keep their knowledge and skill level updated with the system requirements

Training will be given high priority by the top management
Top management will not be busy in firefighting the workshop level problems
Top management will have time to plan at strategic level and improve the overall system of the company
Using Six Sigma for Problem-Solving
Six sigma is a good approach towards solving problems. Any problem that may arise during the implementation of project will be handled with the six sigma technique as mentioned below: -
An additional application in engineering project management is to effectively incorporate the six sigma problem solving techniques. The listed below are the steps which can be very helpful in dealing with the issue present at Home Rob PLC: -
Describe the major problem, the suggestions of customers and the goals of project: High rate of rejections at Home Rob PLC
Measure important features of the existing procedure and bring together pertinent data: Workers at Home Rob PLC do not consult the SOPs
Analyse the information to inspect and authenticate cause-and-effect relations: Worker at Home Rob PLC are not trained regularly to follow SOPs
Advance or enhance the existing process to generate a new, forthcoming state process: New Quality Management System for Home Rob PLC
Regulate the forthcoming state process in order to guarantee that deviances from goal are fixed before they cause any imperfection: Training the workers at Home Rob PLC on the new QMS

This approach uses quality management and statistical data to help project progressing in forward direction with positive outcomes .

Project Charter for new QMS
It entails the statement that reflect the needs of the business. Charter of the project is reflected as the single source of consolidated information about the planning and initiation of the project. It describes the boundaries and limitation of the project irrespective of the methodology being used in the project management. It has an exceptional role as an effective tool of planning. It acts as a navigator and an anchor to guide the progress of work activities in the direction of milestones accomplishment and keep the project close to its fundamental objectives. The original charter of project remain unaltered throughout the life cycle of project. Once the charter has been approved and agreed upon by the stakeholder, it cannot be modified without the approval from all the concerning parties involved in it .
When a project is planned it is very important to clearly identify how the activities of project will proceed and what is the ultimate goal of the project. The project charter for Home Rob PLC includes formulation of a new quality management system along with its implementation through training of employees and conducting audits. This project is based on the vision of reducing the rejection rate of products that is the starting point of the project. The project charter aims to reduce the rejections of products that will result in increasing the profitability of the company. The project charter of this project sets the foundation for the upcoming operational activities including improvements in the system.

Work Breakdown Structure for Project Plan

Home Rob PLC will break the project in a number of milestones that have been described in the next section. Work breakdown is aimed at dividing the task in teams and to manage the work of teams as separate manageable sections. PMBOK describes the work breakdown structure as the hierarchical decomposition of work activities into deliverable task to be proficiently executed by the team of the project. Work breakdown structure describes the scope of project into small manageable chunks that could be easily understood by the project team. Each level of this structure project detailed information and definition of the proceeding level .

Following is the work breakdown structure of the project for Home Rob PLC for new QMS: -

(Smart Art 1 here)

Project Milestones

Following are the important milestones that will be achieved in a phase wise manner in order to successfully implement the project while assigning specific time to each of these: -

Management review meeting

The management review meeting is the very first requirement of the project to establish new quality management system for the Home Rob PLC. The management review meeting will be held by at the top management level in which the content of the quality management report will be displayed to them. The content of this report will also be shared with the top management of in the management review meeting in order to get formal approval from the top management regarding the execution of the project. The management review meeting will be held during the first week of May, 2015. The meeting may continue for several days if required, depending on the level and complexity of the issues highlighted to the top management. Therefore, the first week of the project is planned for management review meeting.

Formulation of strategic plan

Upon approval of top management of the Home Rob PLC, a strategic plan will be formulated that will consist of the strategic level planning of the company in order to address the major issues highlighted in the report. The strategic plans will include setting realistic targets and improving the company’s capability to manufacture products with lowest possible number of rejections. The strategic plan will include planning to improve the skill level of the company’s employees. The formulation of strategic plan will require around three weeks through coordinating and holding meetings with the head of each department.

Formulation of new quality manual

Quality manual of a quality management system acts at the highest level that defines the company’s quality policy and quality objectives that drive the quality management system. The quality manual contains all important aspects of the quality management system that are equally applicable to every department. The quality manual provides high level instructions for formulation of governing SOPs that govern the operation of the major functions of the company. The formulation of a new quality manual will take one month of extensive meetings and acquiring inputs from every department. The quality manual, once published, will be distributed to every department of the company.

Formulation of governing SOPs

The governing SOPs for Home Rob PLC will be formulated under the instructions provided by the quality manual. The governing SOPs will be applicable to every department of the company. The major functions that will be included in the governing SOPs will include skills enhancement, record procedures, and quality control procedures. The governing SOPs will be formulated in consultation with the relevant department. For instance, human resource development will contribute towards formulation of governing SOP for skill enhancement. Similarly, Quality assurance department will be consulted for the formulation of governing SOP for quality control procedures. The formulation of governing SOPs will take around two months of time.

Formulation of departmental SOPs

Once the governing SOPs have been formulated based on the instructions of the quality manual, the departmental SOPs will be formulated based on the procedures defined in the governing SOPs. The departmental SOPs will be formulated by each department and finalized by quality assurance department. The departmental SOPs of each department will be applicable to each department separately. The departmental SOPs will contain procedures adopted by the departments in order to carry out their specific tasks. These SOPs will also contain the duties and responsibilities of each of the important appointment of the department. The safety practices of each department including fire evacuation plan will also be covered in each the departmental SOPs of each department. The formulation of departmental SOP will take around one month.

Document controls established

The document controls will be established under the published departmental and governing SOPs in order to establish a standardized document control procedure throughout the company that would be understood equally by the employees. The document control procedures will enable the employees to keep track and record of all the controlled documents. Any missing document will be identified easily by any employee and if any document will be updated by a department then the same will be disseminated to all the concerned departments. Establishing document controls through keeping controlled documents with a standard way of controlling them will require one moth of time in the project.

Training imparted in employees

Training is a critical phase of the project of establishing new quality management system in the Home Rob PLC. The company will train the employees through various in-house and foreign training sessions in order to improve the skill level of the employees to meet the requirements of the new quality management system. The training will include a staggered way of training in which a certain number of employees will be trained at a time while others continue to work in routine. The trained manpower will finally be able to implement the new quality management system resulting in lower number of rejections. The training phase will take around two months to train all the manpower in a staggered manner. This is a milestone of the project that will result in financial expenditure for paying to the trainers. The total cost is estimated to be around 10,000 GBP.

Control Mechanism and Risk Management

Audits are the ways to measure the effectiveness of the quality management system while minimizing risks. The evaluation of various procedures adopted by departments while following the quality manual and other SOPs is carried out in audits. Audits are of various types out of which three major types of audits will be carried out at the company with one month of time for each audit. The three audits to be conducted in this project will include following: -
Internal Audit: The internal audit will be conducted by the reps from various departments in which employees will audit the performance of other departments with the help of guidelines provided by the quality assurance department. The observations highlighted by the internal auditors will be addressed through raising special corrective and preventive action forms which will be strictly followed.
Customer Audit: The customer audit will be conducted by the customers through inviting them to conduct audit of the company’s facilities. This step will restore the confidence of the customers in the products of the company.
Regulatory Audit: The regulatory audit will be conducted by inviting audit authorities to conduct audit of the company’s facilities regarding fulfilment of the government’s instruction and rules by the company.

Improving supply chain

A number of process improvements will be made in the supply chain that will be a part of improving the quality management system of the company. Improving the supply chain of the company will be the last milestone to be achieved in this project. The conclusion of this step will ensure a high quality project to be delivered to the customers. This step will take around one month while restructuring the complete supply chain of the company.

Time and Scheduling

The project will commence in the first week of May, 2015 and will conclude by end of December 2015. The details of time spent on each activity has already been mentioned in each activity and a schedule is shown in below process chart for carrying out each activity of the project. The total time required to complete the project is eight months.

Process Chart

The milestones mentioned in the previous sections have been mentioned in the following process chart while showing the time required by each of the milestone: -
(Smart Art 2 )

Cost of Project

The project of formulating and implementing new quality management system will be undertaken mostly by the existing manpower. The only expenditure that would incur in the project is regarding training of the manpower by external trainers. The total cost is estimated to be around 10,000 GBP for training the personnel of the company.

Conclusion

The project of introducing new quality management system and implementing it with true spirit involves dedicated efforts from all the levels of the Home Rob PLC. The company needs to focus on each and milestone with dedicated efforts in order to establish the new quality management system with an aim to reduce the rate of rejections. The skill level of manpower highly affect the implementation of the quality management system. Training the employees is perhaps the most important milestone that the company would be required to achieve. The total duration of the project will be around 10 months during which the project will be executed in a phase wise manner.