Leadership and Quality Issues: Dag Brucken Case Study Analysis

This assignment analyzes the Dag Brucken ASRS case study, focusing on the failures of an Australian electrical engineering company in a project for a Taiwanese beverage manufacturer. The analysis highlights key issues in personnel management, including the project manager's lack of IT expertise, poor allocation of responsibilities, and inadequate team dynamics. It examines how these issues, along with insufficient planning and research, impacted the project's quality. The assignment details the factors affecting project quality, such as outdated inventory management, lack of IT specialists, and communication breakdowns. It also discusses the importance of effective leadership, team performance, and the project manager's role in addressing human and quality issues, offering recommendations for improved project management practices. The case study emphasizes the critical link between leadership, team dynamics, and project success, providing insights into how to avoid similar failures in future projects.

Running Head: THE DAG BRUKEN CASE STUDY
The Dag Brucken case study
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author’s note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................2
Key issues in personnel management and leadership issues.......................................................2
Factors affecting the quality of project........................................................................................5
Impact of leadership and team performance on quality issues....................................................8
Addressing human and quality issues by project manager..........................................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The assignment is based on the Dag Brucken ASRS case study. The case study states that
an agreement was done between the Dag-Brucken ASRS private Limited, which is an Australian
based Electrical Engineering Company and beverage Manufacturer Company in Taiwan called
Super Cola Taiwan. The agreement between the companies was for the automated storage and
retrieval system for Super Cola Taiwan for the production facilities in Asia. Dag Brucken ASRS
being awarded with the State Premium Export Award, still the company drastically failed in its
operations. The case study highlights the areas of the faults in the company as well as how the
lack of proper planning of IT development methods resulted in the eventual let-down of the
project. Further the assignment tells the incompetency of its project management techniques. The
objective of the assignment is to explain the important issues in the handling the employees by
the project manager that includes teamwork and leadership. Further in the assignment, the details
about the issues that can impact the superiority of the project as well as what will be the effect of
leadership style and group dynamics on quality matters of the company. The assignment also
includes the recommendations on how a project manager should handle the human and quality
mater that will have direct influence on the project.
Discussion
Key issues in personnel management and leadership issues
The success and failure of any project depends upon how the project is being handled and
managed. Project management is the implementation of the expertise, competencies,
understanding, tools and practices in the doings of the project, so that these requirements meet
the goals of the project. The primary activity of the project manager is assigning and aligning

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different project teams to a variety of complex tasks. The project manager should know the
critical influence of the operational project team and the importance of team work that simplifies
the completion of project (Aga, Noorderhaven and Vallejo, 2016).
The project manager at Dag Brucken ASRS was a contract manager and did not
specializes in the software development field. Therefore, it indicates that he himself know very
little about the criticality of the project. The project that he designed indicated that utilizing two
Programmable logic controllers and one SA/P to develop the software of the project should be
completed within three weeks. But it took five weeks in developing the screen display of only
one cranes. This indicates that there was no proper of allocation of responsibility among the
manager and the technical group of the project. The lack of leadership of the project manager, no
one was effectively performing any occupation or duty they have been assigned by the manager.
The company had little infrastructure to support the expansion of the management. Thus, the
absenteeism of a thorough risk calculation along with impractical planning, and a let-down to
arrange the personnel management for the project point out a insufficiency of the management
about of the progress of the project.
The project demanded the high level of prototypes that includes increase level of research
before commencing the project. Lack of proper research and development, made the process
slow. The project lacked in practical stipulations like design charts, models for data
development, modules description and even lack of testing plans in the project indicated that
there is lack of coordination between the members of the team as well as the leadership quality
of the manager (Andersen, 2016).

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There are certain activities in the project development that clearly indicated the poor
leadership of the manager like- the manager did not develop a proper test plan for the third party
source, even the reviews, inspections and walk through were either done by the developers
themselves or skipped. The project was of high criticality and included various software
developments, hardware development and many more needed for developing cranes for the
automated storage retrieval system for Super-cola Taiwan Company. The PLC software required
for the project is designed by the Managing Director of the Dag Brucken, who is only a graduate
in electric engineer. The project of such high critically should include experts in the related
fields.
The General Manager involved in the project for on-site contracting, had no knowledge
and experience in the IT field. This all shows the poor leadership of the project manager in
assigning the duties to the members. Lack of group dynamics between the members is among the
main issues of managing people that resulted in outcomes like- the participants were not able to
understand the review process, improper planning of the processes and many more (Blaskovics,
2016). The other key issues face by the project manager in handling the personnel in the project
are unclear contingency strategies, negligence in the allocation of the resources to the right
people, deadline issues and delay in the development process, no accountability of the project
scheme, and poor performance by the third party. The high expectation from the project is also
one of the key issues that resulted in low team performance. The major issue in managing people
in the project faced by the project manager is communication issues. Most of the personnel
involved in the project did not have adequate knowledge of the information technology.
Therefore, they were not aware of the basic issues of the project and it resulted in poor
circulation of the information among the team (Haughey, 2018).

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Leadership is the area where the project manager applies practical skills to lead and direct
the members involved in the team. The project manager can increase the effectiveness of the
group by operational leadership. The interruptions in the work process, technical problems and
other responsibilities can affect the team performance as well as result in the delay of the project.
The project manager must evaluate the result of the problem and also measure how the delay will
hamper other sides of the project. The manager should engage the team participants in finding
and implementing the solution. This way the team will be motivated towards giving best
performance. The manager can improve team performance by setting and tracking the goals,
regular review of the processes, feedbacks from the members of the team, enhancing
transparency in communication to all the levels of the employees, proper allocation of power and
delegation, encouragement of recognition in the team, empowerment, knowing the strengths and
weaknesses of the team members, a good working environment, setting clear vision and mission
of the project in front of the team members, proper training to the members regarding the project
and enforcing team dynamics to fill the gap in the process. Because an effective team and group
performance increases the success of the project (Kerzner, 2017).
Factors affecting the quality of project
There are many features that affect the quality of the project as well as its engineering
activities in Dag Brucken. The great rise of the ASRS solution was chosen for SCT, so that there
is no stock outs. The inventory cannot be stored in the traditional warehouse. An expensive
warehouse was used for the storage purpose. This resulted in outdated stock by not following the
FIFO policy. Also nom personnel was employed for the managing the storage inside the
warehouse. This is among the factor that affected the quality because using outdated stock will
result in poor finished product. The managing director involved in the initial stages of the project

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was supposed tom provide the design for software, mechanical, electrical components as well as
the concept of the project. The Managing Director did not possess skills for project management
and hardware development. In the same way, the General Manager had a professional
background of civil engineer with no knowledge of information technology. Since, this projects
needs professionals who are an expert in IT field. The other two project managers employed had
experience in other field. One was experienced in mechanical with an experience of operating
cranes and the other was experienced in contract management. No one in the group had any
knowledge in the development of IT programs that is needed for the project. This will impact the
quality as well as the engineering design of the project (Shao, Feng and Hu, 2016). The absence
of development programme and inappropriate software development methods effected the design
and the engineering of the cranes. The delay in the hardware development of the cranes, the
programmable logic controller could not check the codes developed by them. This also resulted
in delaying the process and hence affects the quality. Lack of formal plans in the entire project,
lack of review process and improper coordination between the teams have badly affected the
quality of the work. Since, project planning and its success is totally dependent on the effect of
the team involved in the process. The strategic decisions had taken by the Dag Brucken but the
company failed to employ specialists that are required for the IT project.
The system analysts at Dag Brucken faced technical limitations in using the software
FoxPro and Visual C++, which badly affected the quality of the work. The communication
module developed by the system analysts failed in delivering the initial prototype that is needed
for the communication module. The system analysts was unable to receive any help from the
member of the group because no one was equipped with proper knowledge of information
technology. This all resulted in affecting the process of the project. Also the misunderstanding

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between the two system analysts forced the management to appoint an external consultant to
look into the matter. This added extra cost for the project development. The GUI database
created by the analysts was detected with many faults by the external consultant. Because it was
clearly stating what the module wants to communicate. This affected the design, quality as well
as time of the duration of the project (Silver et al., 2016).
The GUI had detected many errors in the cranes like failed delivery place full, forward-
facing fork encoder, long travel and error in PLC function. This was serious issues in
engineering design of the project.
There are several factors that exist in Dag Brucken that affected the quality of the project.
Since, the success of any project is entirely dependent upon preparation, proper knowledge of the
processes, collaboration, leadership, timeliness, proper development and many more. However,
there are certain aspects that disturb the quality of the plan like missing the deadline creates
wrong impression about the company in the mind of the client. But finishing the project on time
does not mean that the company should compromise with the quality. The project manager
should take proper measures and be alert about all the hazards that should be taken during the
development process, so that the company is able to deliver the product at the right time. Budget
is another factor that affects the quality of a project. If the company has high budgeted project
then it takes more time and more resources to complete and deliver the product to the client and
vice versa. However, low budgeted projects utilises limited resources but the company cannot
compromise with the quality and keep motivating its team for better performance. The quality of
the project also depends upon the stakeholder associated with it. If the company has many
stockholders then there is chance of disagreement (Zhao, Hwang and Lee, 2016).

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Demand is another factor that affects the quality. The company that have high demand is
likely to compromise with the quality. The project management techniques are one of the factor
faced by the manager. If the organization has skill gap, then it creates difference in the
performance. This will also impact the quality of their work. If the price of the raw material is
high, then the company tries to substitute it with low quality product. This will impact the
engineering design of the project. Different projects need different modules and designs.
Therefore, the project manager has to design the project layout in such a way which should
overcome the problems that hinders its performance also affecting its design.
Impact of leadership and team performance on quality issues
The leadership style at Dug Brucken did not proved beneficial in the success of the
project. There was lack of coordination among the system analysts, PLC developers,
administration and other levels. The team members in Dag Brucken suffered due to lack of
coordination as well as communication between the processes. The project manager had poor
management skills due to this the quality as well as the deadline of the project was badly
affected. There was conflict between the system analysts on the basis of quality. This clearly
indicates the poor coordination between the team members. The environment at the company
was less cooperative because the professionals involved in the project had no proper knowledge
of IT skills. This confined them from helping each other. Therefore, the development of proper
leadership skills is of utmost importance for the total triumph of the project. The character of
Managing director at the company was misunderstood by many staff along with the suppliers
that affected the performance structure of the organization (Meng and Boyd, 2017).
The project manager’s followed a poor leadership style that affected the employee morale
and even make the company’s lowest line to fall. The poor leadership also made one of the

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analyst to leave the company due to quality issues in the work. If the project manager had some
abilities and competencies then the project would not have failed neither the quality of the
product had to suffer.
Addressing human and quality issues by project manager
The human and quality issues at the Dug Brucken can be addresses by employing the
right person for the right job. Since, it was the IT project so, the project manager should make
sure that the members involved in the project for performing activities like software
development, hardware development, project design, planning, handling, testing, reviewing,
feedback and many more should be conducted by the person who possess high skills in the
relevant field. As discussed, in the case study, the professionals involved in the project like
Managing director, general manager, analysts, and even the project manager did not have proper
education, knowledge and experience in the IT field. Therefore, whenever the problem was
arising they were not able to assist each other because they were themselves not aware of the
issues that arises due to some technical fault. The software developed by the system analyst like
GUI had many faults which was detected by the external consultant. This all occurred due to lack
of proper planning of the project (Meredith, Mantel and Shafer, 2017).
The quality issues can be handled by the project manager by identification of the problem
and finding suitable alternative to cope with the condition. The project manager should be
experienced enough to recognise the root reason of the problem and be able to implement the
alternatives. The quality issues can be resolved by proper monitoring of all the processes
involved in the project. As mentioned in the case study, the processes at the company was not
properly managed neither reviewed by the management. There was also lack of feedback
between the workers involved in the project. So, the project manager should be able to execute

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the proper plan at the time of commencing the project by keeping an eye on each and every step
towards development.
The quality issues results because of the human error. The project manager can handle
the human issues by having quality control in the company. This will help in the controlling the
performance as well as the products that is being developed by maintaining its standard. If these
issues are not addresses by the manager, the project will fail drastically (Blaskovics, 2016).
Conclusion
Therefore, the discussion concludes that the project manager of an IT project requires a
range of technical skills. These skills will assist the manager in making the project a success. The
case study along with the assignment discussed above clearly indicates that absence of the skilled
personnel management as well lacking in any skill set required by the relevant project took the
project towards failure. The general project management skills within oneself does not prove to
be enough for the development of the project. The manager should possess other core
competencies that should be appropriate to make any project a success.

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References
2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.academia.edu/30253890/The_Dag-Br
%C3%BCcken_ASRS_Case_Study> [Accessed 12 April 2020].
Aga, D.A., Noorderhaven, N. and Vallejo, B., 2016. Transformational leadership and project
success: The mediating role of team-building. International Journal of Project
Management, 34(5), pp.806-818.
Andersen, E.S., 2016. Do project managers have different perspectives on project
management?. International Journal of Project Management, 34(1), pp.58-65.
Blaskovics, B., 2016. The impact of project manager on project success—The case of ICT
sector. Society and Economy. In Central and Eastern Europe ǀ Journal of the Corvinus
University of Budapest, 38(2), pp.261-281.
Haughey, D., 2018. The role of the project manager. Project Smart, faculty. northseattle. edu.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Meng, X. and Boyd, P., 2017. The role of the project manager in relationship
management. International Journal of Project Management, 35(5), pp.717-728.
Meredith, J.R., Mantel Jr, S.J. and Shafer, S.M., 2017. Project management: a managerial
approach. John Wiley & Sons.