Project Management Assessment: The Case of Chronologic & Chronologic Ltd

Assignment Objective

This assessment component is an opportunity to apply methods and approaches covered in the Project Management module to address a challenging problem. It illustrates the uncertainties and difficulties faced commonly when planning a project, especially in the early stages. 

The Case of Chronologic & Chronologic Ltd is a Plymouth-based company that has been manufacturing luxury watches for 24 years. Recent marketing research indicated their customers are prone to switching to wearable smart technology. To ensure the future profitability growth of the company, the Board of Directors has recently decided to open a new manufacturing facility capable of assembling a new luxury Android-operated smart watch. Nottingham has been selected as  the best place to locate the manufacturing facility. The company wishes to initiate and plan a project to open the new manufacturing facility in Nottingham.

• The site of the facility has been selected and a temporary lease agreement signed for the site. The site is a detached unit in a newly built industrial park and has necessary office space and a suitable building for the production and warehousing processes, as well as spaces for parking. The building has the necessary utilities but lacks basic support IT infrastructure (e.g. office computers, Wi-Fi routers, printers,telephone devices). The rent (£8,500/month) is payable from the 1st of September 2021 when the facility will be ready and available to Chronologic.

• All necessary machinery and equipment for manufacturing the watches will be provided by Chronologic in Plymouth. Assume that two containers of machinery and 
equipment need to be transferred from the Plymouth site.  

• The IT infrastructure will be purchased from a company in Manchester. No order has been placed. The company from Manchester has said that once the order is placed the equipment will be ready for shipping in 1 week and it is the responsibility of Chronologic to arrange shipping.

• Staff from Plymouth will prepare the facility by installing all machinery and necessary IT equipment.

• 22 local workers are to be hired and trained in readiness to operate the facility. At this stage, a training plan has been prepared which specifies 1 week of training in 
Plymouth and 2 weeks at the new facility.staff are to deliver the training, spending 50% of their time for the training in Plymouth, and 100% of their time on training at the Nottingham site.

All the above aspects have been integrated in some preliminary planning work that has taken place in the company, leading to the development of an initial Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) (Appendix A), the identification of activity dependencies and time estimates, and the Network Diagram.

Problem Statement

The goal of the project you have been asked to re-plan is to make the new facility operational. You may assume that other related projects have been completed or are also ongoing (e.g. in relation to legal issues), and are therefore out of the scope of your project.

i)  No preparation was considered for making the travel arrangements (bookings for transportation, accommodation, etc.) for both the Nottingham and the Plymouth staff to visit the other sites.

ii)  It is now evident that Activity 1.3.3 ‘Test & commission of Factory’ needs to be upgraded to a full work package. As part of this new work package, arrangements 
will have to be made for two members of the Board of Directors and one key supplier from Shenzhen, China, to visit the new facility during the testing phase to observe the process. Their travel arrangements will need to be made as late as possible in the project. In addition, the Board members want you to add an activity to allow them to inform the new staff on the company’s strategy, values and philosophy (time estimate for this activity to be decided by you).

These two elements mean that the initial WBS developed (Appendix A) is incomplete for this project. The company is now seeking external advice on scheduling the project and you have been asked to provide your analysis at this early stage.

The proposed date for the kick-off of the facility project is the 1st of September, 2022 (i.e. no work for this project can be carried out before this date). The Board of Directors want to have a plan for how to get from where they are today to having the new facility operational (actually running), and have asked you to propose a schedule addressing the following concerns:

1 Identify the activities relevant to the new additional work package (describe the work involved in each additional activity), develop the complete WBS, and propose a new to include the activities you have identified. In updating the WBS, apart from the important work elements identified as missing you may add further activities if you justify that they add value and are within the scope of this project.

2 Chronologic are particularly interested in the analysis of the uncertainty in time estimates for this project. By utilising the information provided in the Appendices and the additional activities you have integrated, and without considering resources at this stage, what is the duration of the project using the most likely durations and what is the duration of the project incorporating the three points of estimates? Comment on the outcomes.

 3 At this stage, based on the information provided and any assumptions you consider appropriate, develop resource histograms for the most likely duration of the activities (utilise the information provided in the brief and the additional activities you have integrated, and make assumptions, i.e. your own recommendations to the company for resources required to perform the activities). When do you estimate the project will be complete?

 4 Critically discuss the relevance of applying PERT and Monte Carlo simulation analysis for this project.

5 The company has limited knowledge of monitoring the progress of projects. Critically explain the method(s) available that may be relevant.

6 Explain to the company the benefits of having an appropriate project portfolio strategy.

The assignment comprises 6 questions (Question 1 to Question 6) and you should answer all parts. Please answer each part and sub-part in separate sections (each section should have a title relevant to the question, including the question code, i.e. Question 1, Question 2, etc.). The proportion of marks available for each part is indicated in the brackets below each question.

In addressing the questions of this coursework, clearly justify your approaches followed in the answers and highlight any assumptions made.

For Question 1 to Question 3 you are asked to cover the more technical side of Project Management, i.e. to produce an operational plan which will include a revised WBS, schedule, and addresses resource requirements. When answering these questions, it is not necessary for you to describe the Project Management techniques or refer to papers or textbooks about the methods.

For Question 4 to Question 6 you are asked to respond in an essay format. In these answers references to background reading will add value (including the module core text The maximum length for the coursework is 2,000 words (excluding the cover page, table of contents, lists of. There is no penalty for using fewer words. Appendices are optional and can be used to provide background analysis and/or additional info or diagrams; i.e. they can be used to justify points made in the main text. You do not need to provide an executive summary, an introduction section, or overall conclusions at the end of the report. The recommended referencing system is Harvard.