University Project: Design of Autonomous System for Pharmacy2U

This project delves into the design and implementation of an autonomous system for Pharmacy2U, a major online pharmacy in the UK. It begins with an introduction to the company and the rationale behind the project, focusing on leveraging AI to improve patient service through automated dispensing machines. The assignment includes an academic literature review, exploring relevant concepts from project, strategic, and operations management. It details project planning, including a Gantt chart, project life cycle phases (initiation, surveying, planning, development, testing, and closure), and a work breakdown structure. The project also examines project leadership, outlining the roles of the project owner and manager. Furthermore, it addresses potential project risks and failure points, emphasizing the importance of a Risk Assessment Framework. Finally, the project identifies critical success factors and concludes with a summary of the key findings and recommendations for the successful implementation of the autonomous system to enhance the patient experience and streamline operations at Pharmacy2U.

Running head: DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY
PHARMACY2U
Design of Autonomous Project in Patient Service by Pharmacy2U
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
2. Academic Literature Review.......................................................................................................3
3. Project planning, Metrics and Tools............................................................................................5
3.1 The Project Plan.....................................................................................................................5
3.2 The Project Life Cycle...........................................................................................................6
3.2 The Work Breakdown Structure............................................................................................9
4. Project Leadership.....................................................................................................................10
5. Project Risks and Failure...........................................................................................................11
6. Critical Success Factors.............................................................................................................13
7. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15

2DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
1. Introduction
Pharmacy2U is one of the largest online pharmacy situated in the United Kingdom. The
organisation is primarily involved with the electronic transfer of prescriptions for the clients
situated in UK. The company was primarily founded by Daniel Lee in the year 1999. However,
the company was made available to the public by the year 2000 (Pharmacy2u.co.uk 2019). With
the launch of electronic prescription transfer facility, the pilot tests were conducted over a small
group of patients.
The chosen project is based on introducing autonomous systems within the organisational
system based on investing within AI technologies to dispense machines that would perform with
speed and accuracy. With the implementation of this project, the system would be able to process
the requests of customers by picking more orders at a single time and within a short span of time
(Pál et al. 2015). It has been further been estimated that the implication of the autonomous
system would lead to improvements in the processes by which the orders would be processed.
The project for the implementation of the AI technologies and an autonomous system
would further be helpful for the patients. They would be helped with the process of placing a
request for their medicines and getting them delivered within a certain time frame (Ho et al.
2015). This project would further improve the brick and mortar process of placing requests for
medicines and getting them delivered within a certain requested time. The technology would also
have an inbuilt algorithmic system that would be capable of understanding the health problems
of patients and thus provide various kind of medical solutions (Wiley et al. 2014). Such form of
improvements and innovations made into the sector would majorly help in bringing better

3DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
outcomes in the ways by which the patient service would be improved and be helpful for the
growth of the healthcare industry.
2. Academic Literature Review
In order to design an autonomous system, a well-defined project management, strategic
management and operations management perspective should be supported. These different forms
of management would be helpful for the successful delivery of the project.
The project management approach that might be taken for the delivery of the project
should be considered in a proper manner. The management of an autonomous project for the
healthcare sector would be considered as a critical aspect. Within the developmental aspects of a
project, there are many stakeholders involved within the system. During the development aspects
of the project, Pharmacy2U would practice effective form of project management strategies that
would help in lowering of costs and help in improving of outcomes (Desko and Nazario 2014).
During the development of the project, the team working over the project would propose a start
date and estimate each of the critical assumptions that might impact the project. Based on the
various kind of assumptions and necessary stages, the team would be able to set an end date for
the project. During this step, a budget should also be set for the project based on allocating
tangible resources.
The formation of strategies within the developmental aspect of the project forms a major
concern for the entire team. During the defining of strategies for the development of an
autonomous system for online delivery of pharmaceutical orders, the managers within the system
should carefully define the planning approaches. There should be a proper kind of examination
over the nature established by the management team. Some form of exploration should also be

4DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
performed during the gaining of knowledge over the present issues faced by patients in ordering
of medicines from the online medium (Pinna, Carrus and Marras 2015). Based on gaining an
understanding of the strategies that need to be implemented, the complexities faced by
Pharmacy2U should be considered. The implementation of proper form of strategic practices
would be considered to be highly crucial before approaching towards the project management
approaches. A proper kind of thinking should be undertaken in order to help the customers in the
management of prescriptions and receiving e-mail reminders during the time of reordering of
their medicines.
The management of operations based on placing a request for medicines and delivering it
to the customers could be considered as a systematic process. The approach towards operational
management should focus over the day-to-day operations and having a fine control over
logistics. There might be a wide range of operations within the sector that includes receiving of
requests, sorting them as per the urgent needs of patients and assigning of a proper delivery agent
for delivery of medicines to the patients (Ho et al. 2015). Hence, the management of critical
operations performed within Pharmacy2U should be arranged properly in relation to aligning
with defined strategies and appropriate project management approaches.

5DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
3. Project planning, Metrics and Tools
3.1 The Project Plan
ID Outline
Number
Task
Mode
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
0 0 Development of an
Autonomous Project
229 days Fri 02-08-19 Wed
17-06-20
1 1 Start Project 0 days Fri 02-08-19 Fri 02-08-19
2 2 Project initiation Meetings 18 days Fri 02-08-19 Tue 27-08-19
3 2.1 Kickoff Meetings 8 days Fri 02-08-19 Tue 13-08-19 1
4 2.2 Defining of problems 8 days Wed 14-08-19 Fri 23-08-19 3
5 2.3 Presenting the key idea of
project
2 days Mon 26-08-19 Tue 27-08-19 4
6 3 Surveying and Project planning 54 days Wed 28-08-19 Mon 11-11-19
7 3.1 Gaining feedback from
customers
10 days Wed 28-08-19 Tue 10-09-19 5
8 3.2 Evaluation and defining
strategies
6 days Wed 11-09-19 Wed 18-09-19 7
9 3.3 Planning over the project 32 days Thu 19-09-19 Fri 01-11-19
10 3.3.1 Hiring technical experts 15 days Thu 19-09-19 Wed 09-10-19 8
11 3.3.2 Arranging a meeting 7 days Thu 10-10-19 Fri 18-10-19 10
12 3.3.3 Defining of project idea 2 days Mon 21-10-19 Tue 22-10-19 11
13 3.3.4 Preparing a technical plan 9 days Mon 21-10-19 Thu 31-10-19 11
14 3.3.5 Defining the development
and testing plans
10 days Mon 21-10-19 Fri 01-11-19 11
15 3.3.6 Approval of the technical
plan
0 days Fri 01-11-19 Fri 01-11-19 12,13,14
16 3.4 Arranging equipments 4 days Mon 04-11-19 Thu 07-11-19 15
17 3.5 Fitting items within a laboratory2 days Fri 08-11-19 Mon 11-11-19 16
18 4 Development Phase 107 days Mon 04-11-19 Tue 31-03-20
19 4.1 Understanding of the technical
plan
2 days Mon 04-11-19 Tue 05-11-19 15
20 4.2 Coding over the project 45 days Tue 12-11-19 Mon 13-01-20 17,19
21 4.3 Partial presentation of the
product to the owner
1 day Tue 14-01-20 Tue 14-01-20 20
22 4.4 Approval over the partial
product
0 days Tue 14-01-20 Tue 14-01-20 21
23 4.5 Preparing the final part of the
project
55 days Wed 15-01-20 Tue 31-03-20 22
24 5 Testing Phase 41 days Wed 01-04-20 Wed 27-05-20
25 5.1 Creation of a testing plan 7 days Wed 01-04-20 Thu 09-04-20 23
26 5.2 Initiation of testing of the
software
28 days Fri 10-04-20 Tue 19-05-20
27 5.2.1 Preparing for Unit Testing 5 days Fri 10-04-20 Thu 16-04-20 25
28 5.2.2 Approval of the product pass 0 days Thu 16-04-20 Thu 16-04-20 27
29 5.2.3 Presenting Integration
Testing
8 days Fri 17-04-20 Tue 28-04-20 28
30 5.2.4 Approval after Integration
testing
0 days Tue 28-04-20 Tue 28-04-20 29
31 5.2.5 Performing System Testing 9 days Wed 29-04-20 Mon 11-05-20 30
32 5.2.6 Ensuring quality standards
are met
1 day Tue 12-05-20 Tue 12-05-20 31
33 5.2.7 Mitigating of bugs in code (if
any)
5 days Wed 13-05-20 Tue 19-05-20 32
34 5.2.8 Final approval over the
system (Before release)
0 days Tue 19-05-20 Tue 19-05-20 33
35 5.3 Preparing for Acceptance
Testing
5 days Wed 20-05-20 Tue 26-05-20 34
36 5.4 Final release of software to
market
1 day Wed 27-05-20 Wed 27-05-20 35
37 6 Project Closure Phase 15 days Thu 28-05-20 Wed 17-06-20
38 6.1 Documentation of the project 12 days Thu 28-05-20 Fri 12-06-20 36
39 6.2 Submitting the documentation
to management
0 days Fri 12-06-20 Fri 12-06-20 38
40 6.3 Final Pass of project plan 0 days Fri 12-06-20 Fri 12-06-20 39
41 6.4 Making payments to
stakeholders
2 days Mon 15-06-20 Tue 16-06-20 40
42 6.5 Project Sign-off 1 day Wed 17-06-20 Wed 17-06-20 41
43 7 End Project 0 days Wed 17-06-20 Wed 17-06-20 42
02-08
01-11
14-01
16-04
28-04
19-05
12-06
12-06
17-06
W M S T T S F W M S T T S F W
02 Jun '19 28 Jul '19 22 Sep '19 17 Nov '19 12 Jan '20 08 Mar '20 03 May '20 28 Jun '20
(Figure 1: The Gantt chart for the Project)
(Source: Created by author)

6DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
3.2 The Project Life Cycle
The life cycle of the project is concerned with the different phases that are performed
within the project. The different kind of phases that would be present within the project life cycle
includes the following:
1. Project Initiation Meetings – During the starting phase of the project, the conduction
of meetings would be considered to be highly critical in nature. The problems faced by the
business in the present times would be discussed during the presentation of idea over the project
(Kloppenborg, Tesch and Manolis 2014). The kick off meeting would help the investors, project
managers and development team to understand the ways in which the new technology that would
be deployed in reaching out to a large number of customers.
2. Surveying and Project Planning – During this phase of the project, the project
manager and would conduct surveys with customers. This would help them in understanding the
ways in which the new technology would help in serving of customers. After a proper form of
surveying over the needs of customers, the project manager would analyse the solution for the
business and reaching out to a large base of customers.
3. Planning over the Project – This phase would be considered as highly critical in
nature. During this phase, the technical experts would be hired for the development phase. In this
phase, the meeting arranged within the project would help in arranging of a technical plan. The
technical plan that would be prepared for the project would describe the scope of the project, list
of assumptions and constraints, budget estimation and risks that might affect the project (Kerzner
2019). The plan would also highlight the important technical aspects such as the use of specific
software technologies that would be helpful in designing a proper form of software platform. The
test plans that would be made over the software product would also be need to be determined.

7DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
Based on a proper implementation of a test plan, the software would thus be tested accordingly.
After each of the plans would be developed, the equipment would be arranged accordingly and
thus the next phase of the project could be further proceeded.
4. Development Phase – During the phase of development of the software, the
development team would design a draft over the software product (Conforto et al. 2014). They
would thus submit the draft to the approval team who would provide a final approval based on
which the next phase of the project would begin.
5. Testing Phase – During the phase of testing over the software, the four main kind of
testing approaches would be used. The different approaches towards testing over the software
product includes unit testing, integration testing, system testing and acceptance testing (Pedaste
et al. 2015). These different kind of testing approaches would help in testing each of the features
and internal functionalities within the software product that has been designed. During the testing
phase, any kind of detected bugs within the code would be have to be removed within the system
(Braude and Bernstein 2016). After a formal approval from the testing team, the new software
would be released within the market.
6. Project Closure Phase – After the project has been tested and released within the
market, there would be a high need to maintained in the future times. The documentation over
the project would need to be made based on using the features of the product and maintained by
the development team (Thomas et al. 2018). After the submission of the documentation over the
project, the payments for the project would be made to the stakeholders. The project would thus
be signed off, which would mark the completion of the project.

8DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
However, during the defining of scheduling for the project, a certain amount of estimates
would need to be made. These estimates might be created based on the management of time,
budget and risks that might approach towards the project. Based on the estimates made over the
project, it would be highly helpful to define the project in a well-planned manner.

9DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
3.2 The Work Breakdown Structure
(Figure 2: The Work Breakdown Structure for the Project)
(Source: Created by author)

10DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
4. Project Leadership
The aspect of project leadership is the primary art of leading an entire team working over
the project. Both skills based on leadership and management would be highly required to be
demonstrated based on solving the critical aspects in relation to the project. Hence, a wide range
of competencies and skills would be required in order to contribute towards the successful
development of the project (Tyssen, Wald and Heidenreich 2014). In the case for the
development of the autonomous software for Pharmacy2U, the project owner, project manager
and development team concerned over the project would be highly responsible for planning over
the entire project. A perfect quality of leadership would also be need to be shown in order to
arrange the important aspects in relation to the project and complete them within the deadlines.
The different stakeholders involved within the project and their ways of proposing
leadership qualities over the project are discussed follows:
1. Project Owner – The owner proposing the project has the primary focus over a new
kind of software product that would be developed based on meeting the expectations of the
customers (Hsu, Li and Sun 2017). The owner would demonstrate their leadership skills over the
project manager who would be provided with the responsibility to manage the entire aspects of
the project.
2. Project Manager – The project manager would be entirely responsible for managing
each of the aspects in relation to the project. They would perform leadership over the
development and testing team involved with the project (Shelley 2015). Based on the aspects of
leadership, it could be considered that they have to pose certain leadership qualities based on

11DESIGN OF AUTONOMOUS PROJECT IN PATIENT SERVICE BY PHARMACY2U
understanding the requirements of the business and propagate the ideas to the team working over
the project., Any kind of mismanagement would also be need to be handled by them.
5. Project Risks and Failure
A proper mode of Risk Assessment Framework (RAF) would be extremely required in
order to share information and prioritize the risks based on their severity and likelihood of
occurrence within any particular project (Lehtinen et al. 2014). However, in relation to the
scenario of development of an autonomous system for Pharmacy2U, it can be discussed that a
dedicated RAF would need to be applied in order to protect and mitigate the risks that might
approach within any phase of the project.
There are several kind of risk assessment framework that are present in order to help
companies and the internal development team to assess the probability and consequences of
risks. In the particular scenario, the Risk Management Guide based on Information Technology
Standards (NIST) would be chosen in order to protect the companies in assessing the impact and
likelihood of risks (Shackelford et al. 2015). The primary focus of NIST framework to assess the
risk scenarios could be classified into four forms:
1. Categorizing of each IT assets – Different assets included during the developmental
approach includes software, hardware, data, interfaces and processes.
2. Identification of threats – Threats that could be in the form of natural disasters such
as power outages or intentional man-made attacks such as attack of malwares could be defined as
threats (Miron and Muita 2014). These would pose a serious harm towards the development
aspects of the software system.