Analyzing Project Management Literature Review

This assignment requires you to carefully analyze a provided list of academic articles about project management. You need to identify common themes, research trends, and significant contributions within the field based on these readings. The analysis should be presented as a comprehensive document summarizing the key findings and insights gleaned from the reviewed literature.

Running head: Engineering Management
Engineering Management: Parcel Post Company
Name of the student:
Name of the university:

1ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
1. Defining project scope.................................................................................................................2
2. Establishing project priorities......................................................................................................3
3. Developing a Work Breakdown structure...................................................................................4
4. Development of risk breakdown structure...................................................................................9
5. Evaluation and prioritizing the risks............................................................................................9
6. Identification of the risks and development of risk treatment...................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
This report depicts the crucial necessity of adopting proper management approaches to
gain competitive advantages and measurable revenue structure. For this particular report the
selected industry is the Parcel Post Company. Most of the Parcel Post Companies are known
parcel courier serving companies which give high level visibility to their consumers throughout
New Zealand. Primarily the company has manual parcel tracking approach which was not at all
beneficial thus in order to mitigate the issues associated to manual parcel tracking the company
has evolved their business approach. The asset manager of the company is appointed to define
the project scope, for establishing the project priorities. The different Parcel Post Companies of
New Zealand are Courier Post, NZ Courier, Fastway Couriers etc however among these
companies for developing this particular report the nominated company is NZ Courier.
The project priorities including project risks are also elaborated in this report. The
primary aim of the Parcel Post Company is to improve the parcel serving approach from the
older one to an advanced one. It has been found that many risks are also associated to it those
are needed to be mitigated. In order to mitigate these issues proper risk break down structure and
risk management approaches are required to be adopted. In addition to the risk management for
reducing the work load from the members who are working for the Parcel Post Company, work
breakdown structure should be developed. With the help of proper risk and work Breakdown
structure the project anger will e babe to meet the project goal easily.
1. Defining project scope
The scopes of the project are as follows:

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 To develop advanced parcel tracking approaches by incorporating Radio
Frequency Identification Devices (RFID)
 Proper trackers should be involved to the containers while the loading and
unloading of the parcels are done accordingly.
 RFID should be incorporated to the containers to avoid the boxes to get cllapsed
 GPS trackers must be incorporated to allow the consumers to track the current
status of the parcels.
 Tracking software should be added to allow both the consumers and system
developers to improve the existing delivery approach of the Parcel Post company
 To develop such a system that might give more visibility to the consumers
 To develop solution for the modern parcel tracking system
2. Establishing project priorities
During the project understanding phase it has been determined that, most of the issues
rises when the parcels are between the starting and destination reaching phase. Due to lack of
management approach and missing parcel delivering standard the company is facing major level
financial loss. The lifecycle of the parcel delivery starts like the below flow:
 Besides barcode scanning, software trackers are required to be adapted to allow the
consumers to track the status of their parcels
 To add optional delivery mechanisms besides the trucks
 GPS location trackers should be incorporated to identify the details of the containers
those are holding the parcels

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 Automatic parcel sorting system should be incorporated to the delivery system
However, due to lack of technology sometimes it happened that the destinations of the
parcels are changed. Due to the missing sources the consumers feel unsatisfied with thee service.
In order to mitigate theses issues the Parcel Post Company is willing to adopt proper software
based technology to track the details of the parcel till it reaches the desired destination. the other
facts associated to the project include:
 The company has over 100 trucks for operating within the country
 Among the 100 trucks 40 trucks are privately owned and operates completely
individually
 However the rest of the 60 trucks are owned by the company
 The company has 10,000 containers and the Forklift drives treats very badly to the
containers
 The company itself is not responsible for the maintenance rather the maintenance
of the system is owned by third parties
 The traditional delivery system does not have any RFID approach thus the
company used to face major challenges in parcel delivery system
3. Developing a Work Breakdown structure
WBS Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
0
Timeframe for Parcel
Post Company
99 days Wed 10/4/17 Mon 2/19/18

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1
Project initiation
phase
25 days Wed 10/4/17 Tue 11/7/17
1.1
Understanding the
details of Parcel Post
Companies
3 days Wed 10/4/17 Fri 10/6/17
1.2
The traditional
approach of the
company
5 days Mon 10/9/17 Fri 10/13/17 2
1.3
The project
feasibility study
6 days Mon 10/16/17
Mon
10/23/17
3
1.4
Understanding the
details of
6 days Tue 10/24/17 Tue 10/31/17 4
1.5
Developing time
management
5 days Wed 11/1/17 Tue 11/7/17 5
1.6
Milestone1:
Completion of project
initiation phase
0 days Tue 11/7/17 Tue 11/7/17 6
2
Project planning
phase
36 days Wed 11/8/17
Wed
12/27/17
2.1 Risk identification 5 days Wed 11/8/17 Tue 11/14/17 7

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2.2 Risk analysis 8 days Wed 11/15/17 Fri 11/24/17 9
2.3 Risk mitigation 6 days Mon 11/27/17 Mon 12/4/17 10
2.4
Learning the details
of advanced parcel
delivering approaches
5 days Tue 12/5/17
Mon
12/11/17
11
2.5
Procurement
management
7 days Tue 12/12/17
Wed
12/20/17
12
2.6 Scope management 5 days Thu 12/21/17
Wed
12/27/17
13
2.7
Milestone 2:
Completion of project
planning phase
0 days Wed 12/27/17
Wed
12/27/17
14
3
Project execution
phase
31 days Thu 12/28/17 Thu 2/8/18
3.1
Addition of GPS
tracker
4 days Thu 12/28/17 Tue 1/2/18 15
3.2 Incorporating
advanced delivery
6 days Wed 1/3/18 Wed 1/10/18 17

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mechanism
3.3 Barcode tracker 5 days Thu 1/11/18 Wed 1/17/18 18
3.4
Appointment of
local representatives
8 days Thu 1/18/18 Mon 1/29/18 19
3.5
External party
involvement
8 days Tue 1/30/18 Thu 2/8/18 20
3.6
Milestone 3:
Completion of project
execution phase
0 days Thu 2/8/18 Thu 2/8/18 21
4 Project closure phase 7 days Fri 2/9/18 Mon 2/19/18
4.1 Stakeholders signoff 2 days Fri 2/9/18 Mon 2/12/18 21
4.2
Post project
evaluation
2 days Tue 2/13/18 Wed 2/14/18 24
4.3
Final project
documentation
3 days Thu 2/15/18 Mon 2/19/18 25
4.4
Milestone 4:
Completion of project
closure phase
0 days Mon 2/19/18 Mon 2/19/18 26

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Figure 1: WBS for Parcel Post Company
(Source: created by author)

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Figure 2: Gantt chart for Parcel Post Company
(Source: created by author)

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4. Development of risk breakdown structure
Figure 3: Risk Breakdown Structure for Parcel Post Company
(Source: created by author)
5. Evaluation and prioritizing the risks
Due to lack of adoption of technologies, Parcel Post Companies are facing major
challenges throughout. However, all the issues are not equally affecting the revenue of the
company thus the asset manager is required to adopt proper risk management approaches.
However, before developing risk management mechanisms identification of those risks are very
much important. Based on their priorities the project manager should develop the risks mitigation
approaches accordingly.

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Name of the
risks
Impact Frequency Affect Ranking
Theft High High In courier
approaches all the
delivery standards
are not maintained
accurately. Thus
information theft
or lack of security
has been
highlighted as a
major part. In most
of the cases it is
defined that the
information
attached to the
parcels are
hijacked by the
internal attackers.
4
Loss Medium High The couriers could
be held as liable
for the loss of the
shipment. This
2

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might affect the
company by a
major loss of
thousands of
dollars.
Delay in shipment High Medium Delay in shipment
is another major
issues that might
affect the revenue
of the Parcel Post
Company. The
delay of shipment
could cost the
money of the NZ
Parcel Post
Company.
3
Injury to the
courier
High Medium Due to lack of
responsibility and
poorer
sensitiveness of
the courier boys
the parcels are
treated very badly
1

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by the drivers and
shippers.
Damage of
destruction of the
transported items
Low High Due to lack of care
of the courier boys
the parcels those
are going to be
parceled also
affected very
badly.
5
6. Identification of the risks and development of risk treatment
Based on the priority of the risks proper risk mitigation approaches are also required to be
adopted by the project manager. After the identification of the risks those are needed to be
mitigated properly. The risks mitigation strategies are as follows:
Risks Risk mitigation strategies
Theft In order to reduce the rate of information theft
a proper RFID tags to the parcels are needed to
be incorporated. With the incorporation of the
RFID tags none of the external attackers or
unwanted users will be able to track
information details from the parcels
Loss In order to reduce the rate of data loss proper

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tags and encryption algorithms and even in
addition to that information tracking
mechanisms are also required to be adopted by
the project manager
Delay in shipment In order to resolve the issues associated to
delay of shipment proper time management
should be done by the project manager and
asset manager of Parcel Post Company. It will
help the company to gain effective revenue and
success.
Injury to the courier If the couriers are injured due to lack of care
then additional technologies or additional
covers are needed to be adopted for the
couriers by the shipping authority itself.
Damage of destruction of the transported
items
In order to resolve the issues associated to the
traditional parcel transport management system
it is necessary to adopt proper GPS
technologies so that the issues could be
completely minimized.

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Conclusion
From the overall discussion it can be concluded that in order to reduce the issues
associated to parcel delivery Parcel Post Company should adopt advanced technologies in terms
of RFID and GPS tracking. With the help of GPS trackers the service providers will be able to
track the entire path of the delivery starting from the parcel deposit to the delivery of the parcels
to the destination. If each of the parcels has proper RFID tag or barcode scanner then the
chances of delivery issues get reduces automatically rather the parcels will reach the desired
location accurately. The aim of the project is to identify the risks associated to traditional parcel
delivering system and after the identification of the risks proper risk breakdown structure and
risk mitigation approaches are also required to be adopted by the project manager. In addition to
the project risks, for reducing the work reducing the work pressure proper work breakdown
structure is also needed to be developed by the project manager. It has been found that with the
help of RFID tags the details of the parcels could be gained easily by the delivery person. The
chances of occurrences of error regarding parcel delivery will automatically reduce. Though, the
current system has a GPS tracker do not have any connected sensors thus, the person who is
responsible for tracking the orders failed to track the parcels properly. In order to resolve this
issue a sensor device has been attached to the system. The risks management plan including the
risk breakdown structure and the work breakdown structure are also elaborated in this report. At
the end of the report, the approaches through which the issues associated to the traditional parcel
delivery system could be minimized are completely resoled with the help of the RFID tags.

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Bibliography
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management. MIT Sloan Management Review, 56(3), p.53.
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decisions to project management success factors. Information and Software Technology, 56(5),
pp.506-515.
Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management.
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controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
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