Course-Long Project
At the back of your textbook you'll find three projects:
Red Zuma Project (page 646)
Each project asks you to apply what you learn each week to create specific project management documents utilizing the trial version of MS Project Professional included with your text. During Week 8 of the course, you will submit all the documents required by the Project you select. Your effort on these documents will comprise your final exam and contribute over twenty percent of your course grade. Complete all documents prior to the due date in Week 8.
While there is no specified alignment between the 18 chapters of your text and the project documents cited in the projects, you’ll no doubt be able to determine which documents logically align with the content of each week’s assignments. All Week 8 submissions should be in MS Project Professional format
When is the project estimated to be completed? How long will the project take?
The project would be estimated to start on Friday (January 2, 2015) and finished on Monday (January 11, 2016) as indicated in the table below. The total project durations for Red Zuma Project would get involved around 260 days. The estimated project duration for each process as listed in the table below. (Gupta, 2014)
WBS Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
1 Red Zuma Project 260 days Fri 1/2/15 Mon 1/11/16
1.1 Market Analysis 25 days Fri 1/2/15 Fri 2/6/15
1.2 Product Design 30 days Mon 2/9/15 Fri 3/20/15 2
1.3 Manufacturing Study 20 days Mon 2/9/15 Fri 3/6/15 2
1.4 Product Design Selection 10 days Mon 3/23/15 Fri 4/3/15 3,4
1.5 Detailed Marketing Plan 15 days Mon 4/6/15 Fri 4/24/15 5
1.6 Manufacturing Process 30 days Mon 4/6/15 Fri 5/15/15 5
1.7 Detailed Product Design 45 days Mon 4/6/15 Mon 6/8/15 5
1.8 Build Prototypes 25 days Tue 6/9/15 Tue 7/14/15 8
1.9 Lab Test Prototypes 10 days Wed 7/15/15 Tue 7/28/15 9
1.10 Field Test Prototypes 15 days Wed 7/15/15 Tue 8/4/15 9
1.11 Finalized Product Design 20 days Wed 8/5/15 Tue 9/1/15 7,10,11
1.12 Final Manufacturing Process 10 days Wed 9/2/15 Wed 9/16/15 12
1.13 Order Components 7 days Wed 9/2/15 Fri 9/11/15 12
1.14 Order Production Equipment 14 days Thu 9/17/15 Tue 10/6/15 13
1.15 Install Production Equipment 35 days Wed 11/18/15 Fri 1/8/16 14FS+20 days,15FS+30 days
1.16 Celebrate 1 day Mon 1/11/16 Mon 1/11/16 6,16
What is the critical path for the project?
The significant path for the Red Zuma project shown as a red path which to represents an important task whereas, the blue path represent as an uncritical path which shows at the figure below.
Otherwise, the figure below indicated only a group of the critical path. Thus, the significant task of the project is involved the market analysis, product design, product design selection and so on as indicated in the box at the figure below. (Kathy, 2012)
The critical tasks are as below:
WBS Task Name Duration Start Finish
1.1 Market Analysis 25 days Fri 1/2/15 Fri 2/6/15
1.2 Product Design 30 days Mon 2/9/15 Fri 3/20/15
1.4 Product Design Selection 10 days Mon 3/23/15 Fri 4/3/15
1.7 Detailed Product Design 45 days Mon 4/6/15 Mon 6/8/15
1.8 Build Prototypes 25 days Tue 6/9/15 Tue 7/14/15
1.10 Field Test Prototypes 15 days Wed 7/15/15 Tue 8/4/15
1.11 Finalized Product Design 20 days Wed 8/5/15 Tue 9/1/15
1.12 Final Manufacturing Process 10 days Wed 9/2/15 Wed 9/16/15
1.14 Order Production Equipment 14 days Thu 9/17/15 Tue 10/6/15
1.15 Install Production Equipment 35 days Wed 11/18/15 Fri 1/8/16
1.16 Celebrate 1 day Mon 1/11/16 Mon 1/11/16
Which activity has the greatest amount of slack?
In Figure below at the last column shows the total amount of slack for each task project. Hence, the detailed marketing plans were the greatest quantity of total slack which it around 179 days as indicated in the box at the figure below.