Project Plan for Woolworths Group Manufacturing Unit Expansion

This project plan outlines the expansion of the Woolworths Group's manufacturing unit in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It covers the introduction to the project, including project roles, schedule, cost, and quality management. The plan details the need for the project, preparation for execution, and the roles of the project team. It also includes a comprehensive risk analysis, control procedures, and a back-up plan to address potential issues such as economic changes, delays, and cost increases. The project utilizes PRINCE2 methodology and emphasizes constant monitoring, communication, and quality management to ensure the successful completion of the expansion project. The plan also details the resources required, the cost breakdown, and the importance of effective project management to achieve the desired outcomes and mitigate potential risks, such as lack of ownership and accountability within the project team. The document provides insights into project management techniques and methodologies used in a real-world business expansion scenario.

Project Plan

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Introduction to Project Plan....................................................................................................1
Project Roles...........................................................................................................................2
Schedule, Cost and Quality Identification, Management and Control...................................3
Detailed Risk Analysis, Control Procedures, and Back-Up Plan...........................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Project can be said to be a team action which is devised and executed with the sole
motive of achieving the desirable results. Project management can be done with the effective
application of skill set, knowledge base and competences of personnel for the attainment of
project goal. The present report is based upon a project plan executed to carry out expansion of
manufacturing unit of Woolworths Group in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. The project plan
consists of overview of project, business activities, WBS, PIM, project team, Project
Management Plan. Also, it consists of risk management, controlling and response or backup
plan.
Introduction to Project Plan
Woolworths Group is a supermarket chain retail organisation operating across the
peripheries of Australia as well as New Zealand. This is recognised as one of the leading
supermarket groups of Australia. It is dominating the Australian Retail market together with
Coles and maintaining a duopolistic system with reference to the respective business sector. In
order to facilitate growth and development of company, Woolworths Group carried out
expansion of its manufacturing unit within Banbury, Oxfordshire, England. It was seen that
during the expansion of manufacturing unit of the company into Banbury, a major project
setback occurred. This was acknowledged to be “a sudden spike in raw material costs” in
Banbury.
Need for bringing the Project
A review of the business operations was done so as to determine the opportunities present
within market to facilitate growth and development of the corporation. Post the conduction of
market research, it was finalised that Woolworths would be expanding its manufacturing units.
To systematically and structurally carry out such expansion, cost benefit analysis was done by
the firm, resulting in stipulation of detailed overview of information pertaining to the existing
manufacturing capabilities and the requirements to further expand it (Milani, 2019). Apart from
this, budget, resources, accountability, risks, monitoring and controls were taken into account
while proposing a plan for the chosen project. All of this was done in order to make sure that the
expansion project gets completed within the stipulated course of time.
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Preparation for execution of Project Plan
Continuous examination and assessment of operational processes is the prerequisite for
growth and development of business entity. This is usually done while keeping alignment with
relevant and appropriate project management tools and techniques. While doing so, cost benefit
analysis is taken into consideration by an entity.
With reference to the expansion project of Woolworths, it was essential to ensure that the
method chosen to execute the project had the capacity to elevate the quality of business activities
(Ellis, 2019). This meant the direction of project towards the desirable outcome by ensuring
proper adherence to organisational policies. All of this was aimed at effective execution of
monitoring and controlling procedures and rendering aid to Project Manager to feasibly
implement the expansion project within the predetermined course of time by making use of
optimum resources.
Project Roles
The project was based on expansion of manufacturing capabilities of Woolworths. The
activities associated with the execution of project were analysed in detail in order to achieve the
desired outcomes. For this purpose, a project team was developed consisting of 20 persons. The
overview of roles and responsibilities of personnel that belonged to the project team is as
follows:-
Role Responsibilities
Project
Manager
It was the responsibility of project manager to manage and coordinate all
the activities associated with expansion of manufacturing unit of entity.
Project manager possessed the capability to align all the project activities
with the desired outcomes and report the daily progress to Top
Management of Woolworths. Further, his role also included stipulation of
budget and delegation of authority among the project team. Lastly, the
supervision of course of action related to the project was also done by the
Project Manager (Carter, 2019).
Top
Management
This is the highest authority which is responsible for undertaking essential
decisions related to allocation of resources and project implementation.
Administrative The employees belonging to this department of project team held the
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Department responsibility to execute the tasks stipulated by the top management.
Technical
Personnel
The individuals in this departmental unit held the responsibility to carry out
certain technical tests for the proper upkeep and maintenance of
manufacturing unit within Banbury, England.
Schedule, Cost and Quality Identification, Management and Control
Schedule, Cost and Time
It is regarded as the prima-facie role of project manager to focus on effective distribution
of work so as to make sure that the project gets completed in appropriate time frame. Within
project management, task distribution has a vital role. In this context, it is generally believed that
whereby a task is appropriately segmented into various phases and allotted to concerned
departmental units, project efficiency automatically gets boosted. For this purpose, a time scale
was prepared in accordance with the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure). This served as the
guidance for Woolworths to carry out the various activities of project during the allotted time
period (Fewings and Henjewele, 2019). To effectively carry out the expansion of manufacturing
capabilities of Woolworths within Banbury, certain resources were required such as
technological, physical, financial and human. These were duly allotted to the operational tasks
with a view to enhance the overall results related to the project. Furthermore, project cost was
determined for the expansion project to be feasibly executed without any constraints. The cost
breakdown was as underneath:-
RESOURCES AMOUNT (€)
Land 232
Materials 355
Human Resources 233
TOTAL 820
To ensure that the project team executes the expansion project with optimal usage of
resources, it was provided with training sessions for a week. The personnel belonging to the team
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were duly communicated about their role and reporting manager. The end results of each day
were to be communicated to project manager. Communication was duly set amidst the group so
that there is clear interaction within all the members and least chances of occurrence of disputes
or conflicts.
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Quality Management
This is defined as the process of maintaining the chosen project management technique
and methodology. This element pertaining to any project makes sure that the activities are
aligned with the desired outcomes and the least chances of any loopholes within the process. The
ways of quality management that were taken into use for the expansion project of Woolworths
are described as follows:-
Communication: Constant interaction was facilitated between the various parties of
Woolworths involved in project directly or indirectly, such as project team, stakeholders, project
manager and Board of Directors. Hereby, the communication was carried out by way of mails,
calls and instant messengers.
Constant monitoring and controlling: In order to ensure least variance, project manager
constantly analysed and evaluated the project activities at frequent intervals of time. This helped
in dealing with the issues in appropriate time (Boudah, 2019). PERT (Program Evaluation
Review Technique) was taken into use for the monitoring and control of expansion project of
Woolworths.
Meetings: These were conducted once every month to gain knowledge of the queries
being faced by the team members while working on the project. Meeting assisted the project
manager in effectively supervising the activities carried out by the group. Also, meetings were
conducted to set forth the future course of strategies that would aid in attainment of project
objectives.
Total Quality Management: This is a technique pertaining to project management which
is implemented to gain assurance that each phase of the respective project encompasses quality at
all times. This methodology was taken into use in order to ensure the compliance with stipulated
standards of quality at any point of time.
Methodology for Management and Control
PRINCE2 methodology was utilised to execute the project undertaken by Woolworths.
This is a process based project methodology used by organisations to carry out the project in a
systematic manner. The overview of all the phases of PRINCE2 methodology are given below:-
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Project initiation: The initial stage of project comprised of planning for facilitating the
execution of expansion within Banbury, England. Also, it included exploration of strategies and
techniques for project continuation (Houston-Kolnik and et. al., 2019).
Direction of Project: This consisted of an effective procedure for monitoring and
controlling of the expansion project so as to ensure that it was leading towards the right
direction.
Project Implementation: This phase of project methodology consisted of implementation
of project under the guidance and supervision of Project Manager.
Project control: This phase included the continued assessment and evaluation of
conducted course of action related to opening up of a manufacturing unit in Banbury. This aided
in ascertainment of areas whereby improvement could be carried out. In this regard, here it was
ascertained that there was a sudden spike in cost of raw materials which were necessary for setup
of new manufacturing unit of Woolworths in Banbury.
Management of Product delivery: The improvement which was ascertained to be
necessary in previous phase was scheduled across the whole planning procedure in this stage
(Seijger and et. al., 2019).
Project closure: This being the last phase witnessed the implementation of expansion
plan. Hereby, a variance analysis was carried out to find the difference lying within obtained and
desired results.
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(Source: PRINCE 2 Methodology, 2019)
Detailed Risk Analysis, Control Procedures, and Back-Up Plan
RISKS AND ISSUES LIKELY OUTCOME
Economic and/or political
changes
 A slight change in political or economic state of
the nation could result in delay of project
completion.
Delays  Could restrict project implementation.
 Hamper the quality of relocation project.
Insufficient forecasting  Impact upon the overall structural execution of
project activities.
Planning Errors  This could create hindrance in completion of the
expansion project (Maranhão and de Azevedo,
2019).
Skill and Resource Deficits  Lack of physical/human/financial resource could
create hindrance in execution of project and
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I
llustration 1: PRINCE 2 Methodology

attainment of desired outcomes.
Spike in Material Cost  Could elevate the overall cost of expansion
project.
Probable risks in final project stages
The basic role and purpose of any project manager is to make sure that the project gets
completed in an appropriate without occurrence of any kind of issue. For this, it is essential that
probable risks are ascertained by them in a timely manner so as to effectively deal with them. In
this regard, there were a number of risks that might have occurred at the end of project. These are
discussed below:-
Lack of ownership: Certain decisions associated with project can only be taken by higher
authorities (Holden, 2019). Project manager lacks the authority to take such decisions and this
lack of ownership was identified as a probable risk at end stages, because this might have caused
a delay in project completion.
Lack of accountability: A number of times, the personnel belonging to project team do
not have knowledge about their accountability related to project. This was recognised as yet
another significant risk as this could have resulted in several complexities and emergence of
conflicts within the project team involved in expansion of Woolworths in Banbury.
Monitoring, controlling and appraising of the project activities
Monitoring of relocation project will be done by taking into account the following
documents of project plan:-
 A regular check was kept upon the project activities to make sure that they were executed
in the desirable manner. Herein, the criteria were set as per the daily work with the help
of documentation which assisted during inspection.
 Constant meetings occurred to consider issues or problems and undertake corrective
measures simultaneously (Silcox and et. al., 2019.). This assisted in completion of project
effectively. This helped project manager in determination of need for giving training
sessions to subordinates. An effective plan was designed to significantly decrease such
risks.
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 Appraisals and rewards were given as per performance of project team members on a
monthly basis.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can be said that project management is an important part of
any company. With reference to this, project plan is the formal and documented version of
planning done in order to ensure effective controls and execution of the project. This serves as
the key to successful project implementation and is regarded as one of the most significant and
relevant documents which is required to be prepared before the start of the project. To ensure the
successful implementation of any project, it is imperative that all the phases of plan are
effectively executed within the due course of time. This gives rise to the importance of project
monitoring and controlling which are key to ensure the alignment of project activities with the
desirable outcome.
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