Integrated Management Report: Refurbishment Programme of Riverside Shopping Mall

This report undertakes project management activities related to refurbishment programme of Riverside Shopping Mall. Tasks identified are related to Riverside Multi-Storey Car Park, Riverside NHS Practice, and resource management and smoothing of security and surveillance environments CCTV.

Integrated management
report
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Executive Summary
This report undertakes project management activities related to refurbishment programme
of Riverside Shopping Mall. In the report, three project tasks have been identified and
information out of them have been analysed to make recommendations in accordance with the
operational or project management performance required. Tasks identified are related to
Riverside Multi-Storey Car Park for which planning and critical path analysis has been drawn,
Riverside NHS Practice for which planning, budgets and optimisation have been taken care of
and finally resource management and smoothing of security and surveillance environments
CCTV has been undertaken.
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................4
Project Task 1: Planning and Critical Path Analysis Riverside Multi-Storey Car Park.........4
Project Task 2: Planning, Budgets and Optimisation Riverside NHS Practice and Walk-in
Centre.....................................................................................................................................7
Project Task 3: Resource management and smoothing Security and Surveillance
Environments CCTV............................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
Project management is undertaking all the activities that are related to managing a project
(Heldman, 2018). In this report, projects related to Riverside Shopping Mall are considered. Mall
is undergoing a refurbishment programme and context provided is that management of mall and
several other current and prospective tenants are looking for related consultancy. Three projects
have been undertaken and various planning and operational activities have been considered to
draw up conclusions, that can form basis of the project being considered for management.
Main Body
Project Task 1: Planning and Critical Path Analysis Riverside Multi-Storey Car Park
Task Scenario: A new multi-storey car park is being considered to be constructed in
order to meet the demand of additional on-site parking from car users. Said new multi-storey car
park will be constructed as the part of the current ground level car park, with a new covered link
into the centre.
1. Network diagram
Network diagram is a tool that is used to map out the schedule and work sequence for the
project being undertaken as well as enable tracking its progress through each stage from
beginning up to and including completion (Kerzner, 2018). In the multi-storey car park project, it
can be illustrated that in the early feasibility study, a sequence of the tasks to complete the
project has been drawn which bifurcates the task into fifteen steps that starts from site clearance
and set-up to completion. Below mentioned is the related network diagram of the project:
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2. Critical path and planned duration of the project
Critical path refers to that longest sequence of tasks that is necessary to be completed in
order to successfully conclude a project from start to finish (Kerzner, 2019). Based on the
sequencing provided of the project, below mentioned is the critical path of the multi-storey car
drive project:
Project duration refers to the total time taken to compete a project. It is measured in either
working period like working days, working hours or work weeks. Below mentioned is the
calculation of project duration according to the working days in the project sequence mentioned:
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3. Gantt Chart
Gantt chart is a project management tool that is aimed at assisting in planning and
scheduling of project (Nicholas and Steyn, 2017). It is used to simplify complex project planning
activities sequence. Below mentioned is the Gantt chart for the multi-story car drive project.
4. Initial Project Budget
Project budget refers to the statement that combines costs of all activities, tasks and
milestones that the project is required to fulfil (Meredith and et. al., 2020). In other words, it
contains information about total amount of money or finances required to finish the project. It
must be in agreement with all the stakeholders of the project. However, this is always a risk of
the unknown. Therefore, to set aside an emergency fund is a good idea. In the car park project, a
contingency risk of 5% is taken to account for the unexpected delays or intermediate changes in
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the project which requires budget revisions. Least the project team requires to take up
contingency reserve, more successful the project will be known as.
Initial Budget
(Riverside Multi-Storey Car Park)
Capital Cost £675,000
Other Cost:
Project Management team (£5750 per week)
=5750*34
£195,500
Piling and concrete rig hire (£75000 per week)
= 75000*4
£300,000
Road Paving Machine Hire (£15000 per week)
=15000*4
£60,000
Piling rig crew (£900 per day)
=900*5*4
£18,000
Road Paving crew (£500 per day)
=500*5*4
£10,000
Total other costs £583,500
Estimated Project cost £1,258,500
Project contingency @5% £62,925
Total project cost £1,321,425
Project Task 2: Planning, Budgets and Optimisation Riverside NHS Practice and Walk-in Centre
Task scenario: The present building of the Riverside NHS Practice is currently based in a
very old building which is dilapidated and not to fit to use anymore. Therefore, practice wants to
move into one of the larger units in Riverside mall. In addition, practice manager wants to install
a new Patient Record System (PRS) which would require an IT project. This project would
require to undertake analysis, designing and implementation of a new system. For it, a budget of
£100,000 maximum has been approved. In a discussion with concerned people, it was decided
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that purchase of customised off-the-shelf package solution would be best approach. Rather than
going the way of inviting the quotes, practice manager decided to buy the hardware from
suppliers themselves and undertake development work using a small team of developers by
themselves according to a project plan drawn up by Head of IT at the practice.
1. Calculation of cost under initial project plan
In the initial project plan drawn up, the project was divided into eleven tasks which
ranged from one week taken up to decide requirement definition to 6 weeks taken up for
application configuration. It is considered that team of developers would be paid according to the
number of days they have worked (Padalkar and Gopinath, 2016). Below mentioned is the
network diagram and Gantt chart for the initial project plan to understand the project planning
and sequencing.
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From the above activity chart, it can be seen that working days under initial project
planning is going up to 120 days which comes to more than 17 weeks (17.14 weeks ~ 18 weeks
in working). Further, below mentioned is the statement of cost under initial project planning:
Statement of cost
Patient Record System, Riverside NHS Practice
Particulars Cost per week Total weeks Amount (in £)
Fixed cost of PRS package 34,500
Fixed cost of hardware upgrade 6,000
Cost of IT manpower 5,000 18 90,000
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Total 130,500
2. Calculation of revised project duration and cost statement
Board members have provided budget for £100,000 and in order to avoid incurring extra
maintenance cost wanted the project to be completed within 12 weeks. However, it can be seen
from above statement of forecasted cost that it surpasses the budget provided of £100,000 and
the project duration is crossing 17 weeks. Therefore, it becomes mandatory to revisit the project
plan and determine the options that are capable of saving either time, money or both. Certain
options were considered to re-design the project plan with an aim to either save cost or decrease
activity time and the following options were finalised to be taken up.
Option Details Cost changes Time saving
A
Creation of simpler user guide and system
reference manual while fulfilling
documentation.
No cost saving Time saving of 2 weeks
on Task 10
B Hiring of a specialist consultant to help
with the configuration work.
Extra fixed
cost of £5,500
Time saving of 3 weeks
on Task 3
C
The system to be constructed as a
standalone system without the benefit of an
internet connection.
Saving of
£3,800.
No time saving
D
Second hand desktop computers from a
local school to be used instead of the
hardware upgrades specified by the PRS
supplier.
Saving of
£5,000
Time saving of one
week on Task 6
There was one more option of performing works of Task 8 as over-timing, out of normal
working hours which would have incurred extra cost of £2,500 but would had been able to save
one-week time in return. However, in this option cost incurred outweighs the benefits therefore,
it has not been considered (Kerzner, 2017). Based on the above developments, revised project
plan, project duration and statement of cost is drawn up below:
ID Task Duration
(weeks) Predecessor/s
1 Requirements definition 1w -
2 Systems analysis 2w 1
3 Application configuration 3w 2
4 User workshops 2w 3
5 Unit testing 2w 2
6 Hardware upgrades 2w 5
7 Data migration 1w 5
8 Integration work 2w 4,6,7
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9 System testing/handover 1w 8
10 Documentation 2w 1
11 Project completion 0d 9,10
It can be seen further that revised project duration comes to 90 days which still exceeds
period of 12 weeks by six days making the revised project period 13 weeks of working.
However, in the revised duration, project would be able to be completed by August as desired by
board members. Below mentioned is the revised statement of forecasted cost based on revised
project duration.
Statement of cost
Patient Record System, Riverside NHS Practice
Particulars Cost per week Total weeks Amount (in £)
Fixed cost of PRS package 34,500
Fixed cost of hardware upgrade 6,000
Fixed cost of specialist consultant 5,500
Cost of IT manpower 5,000 13 65,000
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Total cost incurred 111,000
Less: Cost saved on constructing
standalone system
(3,800)
Less: Cost saved on using second-hand
desktop computers
(5,000)
Total 101,700
After carrying out the suggested modifications in the cost statement, it can be observed
that overall cost has been reduced from earlier but still the project fails to be carried out under
£100,000 and exceeds the budgeted cost by £1,700. Hence, it can be concluded that project
cannot be completed under the budget of £100,000 in 12 weeks (Cicmil and et. al., 2017).
Project Task 3: Resource management and smoothing Security and Surveillance Environments
CCTV
Task scenario: Upgradation of CCTV surveillance and security system is another project
that has been decided to be undertaken as part of refurbishment of Riverside Mall. This project
has been allocated to the Security and Surveillance Environments (SSE) company under the
tender process. In the tender submitted, company has submitted Gantt chart which had supposed
delivery of project at the end of the 13th week. It had divided the project in 7 tasks which were to
be performed by different engineers in the number as shown below:
However, as the company was preparing to start work, two engineers got injured and
were not expected to return in the planned project period. This left the company with maximum
five engineers available for the Riverside project.
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1.Planned resource requirement by means of resource histogram
Above histogram illustrates the allocation of human resource i.e. engineers as proposed
under the initial tendor submitted. An immediate analysis shows a frequent variance in the
quantity of engineers required throughout the duration of the project, which may have a negative
impact on the project, as frequently changing levels of staff on a project may discourage
productivity and commitment. Moreover, due to unfortunate incident of injury of two engineers,
company would be facing shortage of resources in completing the project on time and as per the
cost structure determined. One option in front of company is that it hires extra engineers for the
project temporarily but it would unncessarily increase the cost for the company which is assumed
that it wants to avoid. Therefore, for the project which requires maximum of 9 engineers at a
time in week 3 as determined in histogram, company has to undergo the project with only 5
engineers available. This render previous Gantt chart not useful and require re-scheduling of
project plan in accordance with the resources available (Lientz and Rea, 2016).
2.Re-scheduled CCTV project
According to the original plan, Go-live task has to be launched at the end of 13th week
which requires maximum of 9 engineers at the peak of the project work. However, since only 5
engineers are available at maximum, project activities have to be revised. Now, unlike earlier,
activities cannot be started together and will have to follow each other as per the availability of
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the resources. For example, activity of system control module has to be launched first and
requires availability of 3 engineers for 9 weeks which leaves only 2 engineers behind to take up
other activities. External control module requires availability of 2 engineers for 3 weeks.
Therefore, it can be taken up together with the air control module. But, with no engineers left
behind, no more activities can be taken up. It means that internal surveillance module which was
originally planned to be started in 2nd week for next 4 weeks and passive detection module
which was slated to be started in 3rd week for next 4 weeks cannot be started as planned
originally as both of them also requires 2 engineers each. Now, in the present condition, internal
surveillance module can be taken up post completion of external tracking module and passive
detection module can only be taken up post completion of internal surveillance module. But this
would shift project plan further by 2 weeks and now go-live activity can only be taken at the end
of 15th week. However, if the company hires or is provided with four more engineers, time and
cost of these two weeks can be saved (Teslia and et. al., 2016). Below mentioned is the resources
planning under the revised situation:
Below mentioned is the Gantt chart under the revised situation which shows that project
can only Go-live at the end of 13th week and the extra cost and time incurred can be saved by
employing extra resources:
3.Revised dates for system testing
Company planned to start the project in January and have to make things work with only
5 engineers. Therefore, it needs to make
Task Name Starting date Finishing date
System Control Module 11-Jan 12-Mar
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External Tracking module 11-Jan 29-Jan
Internal Surveillance Module 01-Feb 26-Feb
Passive detection module 01-Mar 26-Mar
Communication module 29-Mar 16-Apr
System Testing 19-Apr 23-Apr
Go-live 26-Apr --
According to the above table, project is expected to be completed by 16th April. Client
can track system from 19th April to 23rd April and will therefore be able to Go-live on 26th April.
Engineers Starting date Finishing date
5 engineers 11-Jan 12-Mar
4 engineers 29-Mar 16-Apr
3 engineers 19-Apr 23-Apr
2 engineers 15-Mar 26-Mar
From the above table, it can be observed that five engineers worked only for 9 weeks,
four engineers only for 3 weeks, three engineers for 1 week only and two engineers for 2 weeks
only, out of the total project period of 15 weeks. This shows that there have almost 6 weeks
when resources were not being optimally utilised. Since, this is also an option that if company
hires additional engineers for the lag period as per the original project plan, it will be able to save
both additional time and additional cost of two extra weeks (Martínez-Rojas, Marín and Vila,
2016).
Conclusion
From the report above, it can be deduced that planning, budgeting, resource management
and other operational activities are connected and required to be performed properly to draw up
accurate recommendations that can become basis of conducting and completing underlined
project. Recommendations related to various operational activities performed have been
provided in the report with an aim to increase profitability of the client seeking consultation for
the said project being under management.
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References
Books and Journal
Cicmil, S. and et. al., 2017, April. Exploring the complexity of projects: Implications of
complexity theory for project management practice. Project Management Institute.
Heldman, K., 2018. Project management jumpstart. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management metrics, KPIs, and dashboards: a guide to measuring
and monitoring project performance. John Wiley & Sons.
Kerzner, H., 2018. Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley
& Sons.
Kerzner, H., 2019. Using the project management maturity model: strategic planning for project
management. John Wiley & Sons.
Lientz, B. and Rea, K., 2016. Breakthrough technology project management. Routledge.
Martínez-Rojas, M., Marín, N. and Vila, M.A., 2016. The role of information technologies to
address data handling in construction project management. Journal of Computing in Civil
Engineering. 30(4). p.04015064.
Meredith, J.R. and et. al., 2020. Project management in practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Taylor & Francis.
Padalkar, M. and Gopinath, S., 2016. Six decades of project management research: Thematic
trends and future opportunities. International Journal of Project Management. 34(7)
pp.1305-1321.
Teslia, Y. and et. al., 2016, August. Control of informational Impacts on project management.
In 2016 IEEE First International Conference on Data Stream Mining & Processing
(DSMP) (pp. 387-391). IEEE.
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