The case study simulates a project management scenario where the student takes on the role of project manager. The case information is not complete so where necessary students will have to make assumptions and argue the pros and cons for any recommendations they make. If necessary, students are expected to find relevant information in the academic literature to justify their answers. To assist students in their assessment solution development the following information is provided: • Product development case description • Specific assessment questions that must be answered • Information regarding the submission of the assessment • Marking guide Product Development Case Description CQConstruction Supplies is a small independent cement business supplying the greater Sydney area. It has an aggregation depot in the inner west that also provides secure parking for its fleet of 45 state of the art concert mixer trucks. While business is growing steadily so is the completion for CQConstruction. They cannot match the economies of scale of the bigger players in the industry and new entrants are picking away at some of their traditional customer base. George Readymix the proprietor and founder of CQConstruction Supplies know’s that if it was not for the Sydney Construction boom the business would be in trouble. He does not have the capital to relocate the business to bigger premises where he can scale up the operation and compete on price with the big suppliers. The proposal he took to the Bank was in essence to differentiate the business in terms of Value and Service. The objective was to make it more difficult for would be competitors to replicate his business model. His plan was technology based and would stand or fall on four interconnected pillars. • Fit all trucks with robotic cement delivery pumping systems. This would reduce the customer’s labour requirements and the delivery times of each load. • Implement an integrated CRM system crossing sales and logistics delivery management. This system would identify those customers with construction requirements best able to gain value from the new robotic pumping mechanisms and provide advice via a Web portal on new construction techniques. • Fit all trucks with Geo positioning and route mapping system software. Integrated into the logistics systems, this solution promises to reduce fuel costs and provide customers with pin point accurate delivery information to their mobile phones. • OS/Android customer user interface. Provide order and delivery in real time well as billing and invoicing. The bank was keen to lend and was quick to bankroll the estimated $14.5 million for the project. George was recently very impressed by a presentation he had attended hosted by your Systems Integration Company and particularly your experience in deploying, at low cost, modules of the popular German ERP software his company uses. After a brief tender process CQConstruction Supplies awards you the contract to oversee the implementation of the project. None of your company’s resources will be used directly in any of the tasks. Your role is purely one of project management.For part A of the assessment you must complete the following tasks and questions. Read all the questions before you commence the tasks. The schedule is to be developed in an appropriately named Microsoft Project 2013 file (see below) and the questions are to be answered in a Word document. As stated above, any assumptions must also be listed at the beginning of the Word document. 1. You have been asked by Billy the Banker at ANZ , to use Microsoft Project to develop the project schedule. Note that he has also asked you to include the milestones at the end of the task list in your schedule. These will be used for monitoring the cash flow of the project. Based on the information in the case study description above, use Microsoft Project 2013 to produce a “Part A” schedule. Make sure that you: a) Include the milestones at the end of the task list. b) Include the resource allocation details on the schedule. c) Have the project name (CQConstruction Supplier’s Business upgrade) as the top of the task list and have all other tasks and summary tasks indented according to the given WBS. d) Make sure that the holidays described in the “additional information” are not included in the available working days for your project. e) Use the Microsoft Project software to make sure that the critical path(s) are automatically displayed in red on the bars of the Gantt chart view of you schedule. At this point there may be resource over allocation issues. Do not attempt to resolve these before answering question 2. Save this version of your schedule in ms project file called CQContructionSupplysPartA1.mpp. You will be required to submit this file as part of your assignment submission. 2. At this point ignore any resource over allocations. Based on your CQContructionSupplysPartA1.mpp schedule (and assuming that you would have no resource constraints): a) How long would the project take? b) What are the start and finish dates of the project? c) List all the tasks that are on the critical path. d) Did the annual holidays make any difference to the end date of your project? Explain why/why not. e) If you were asked to complete the project 3 weeks earlier by reducing the duration of some of the tasks in the project, what tasks would you target for reduction and why? In your answer, include specific suggestions about how you could reduce the duration of those tasks. 3. Create a copy of CQContructionSupplysPartA1.mpp in another file called CQContructionSupplysA2.mpp. If there were any resource over-allocation issues resolve these in this new CQControllersPartA2.mpp without adding any additional resources. Save the “modified” version of CQContructionSupplysPartA2.mpp.

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