Nt1330 Unit 6 Paper

Background:
The Custom woodworking Company has been in the custom furniture business since the early 1950’s. Since their inception they have grown their business and reputation steadily. This growth has demonstrated a need for the company to expand its existing factory floor space. Therefore, the companies stakeholders have agreed to expand the existing property by adding “additional production capacity equivalent to 25% of the existing floor space” (Wideman). Moreover, the floor space would contain “air-conditioning, a dust-free paint and finishing shop, an automatic wood working production train, as well renovated offices for the President and Executive Vice President” (Wideman). The total renovation costs have been outlined not to exceed
$17 million with a completion date of eighteen months from today.
Current Project Problems:
1. No planning phase completed for the project.
2. Inexperienced mechanical engineer acting as project lead.
3. No design phase completed for the project.
4. Project lacked organization – ex. manufacturing drawings sat in junior clerk’s desk for two weeks.
5. Catalogue descriptions and specifications were never received resulting in design flaws.
6. Internal/External communication breakdowns
7. No coordination for implementation efforts
8.
Task estimations not defined
9. Budget overruns
10. Project timeline exceeded two years
Proposed Solution:
In order to successfully complete the project a five phased approach based on the PMBOK will be taken.
Phase 1 – Initiation
1. Define the project SOW.
2. Requirements gathering.
3. What are the “project goals, budget, timelines, resources, etc?” (Reynolds, 2010)

Phase 2 – Planning/Designing
1. Define the project team. Identify all key roles and responsibilities within the team
2. Complete a “WBS of all the work that must be done to complete the project” (Wysocki, 2009).
3. Design Review meetings
4. Task duration estimates.
5. Estimate project Costs
6. “Build a project network diagram and establish task dependencies using FS, FF, SS, and SF where needed” (Wysocki, 2009).
7. Resource allocation
8. Define critical path(s)
9. Create a project schedule using Microsoft Project. Project schedule will built from and contain the following information:
a. WBS
b. Project Network Diagram which includes tasks, task estimates, task dependencies, resource names, and completion %.
c. Gant Chart
Phase 3 – Execution
1. Establish open lines of communication to internal/external resources, contractors, sub contractors, and
stakeholders
2. Implement Phase 2 project plan
3. Complete scheduled task execution meetings
4. Identify and manage all risks, costs, quality, scope creep, etc.
Phase 4 – Monitoring For this phase the Project Manager will monitor the progress of the project plan and project schedule that has been developed to determine if the project deliverables are being completed on-time, within budget, and according to the SOW. Additionally, the Project Manager based on project progress may revisit the original project plan to asses any critical paths, resource changes and or reassignment, improvement to the schedule, among several other factors.
Phase 5 – Closing
This phase of the project according to Wysocki (2009, pp. 284) will include the following:
1. Getting client acceptance of deliverables
2. Ensuring that all deliverables are installed
3. Ensuring that the documentation is in place
4. Getting client sign-off on the final report.
5. Conducting the post-implementation audit
6. Celebrating the success
In closing the proposed solution provides a project execution life cycle that is organized, has defined project roles and responsibilities, detailed planning and design, coordination, and an implementation strategy that will provide the Custom Wood Working Company’s factory floor expansion project the structure required to be completed effectively and efficiently