Comprehensive Project Management Plan for 3-D Printing Technologies

This project management plan focuses on the application of project management principles to a 3-D printing project. It begins with an introduction to project management methodologies, including Waterfall, Agile, and Hybrid approaches, emphasizing the appropriateness and limitations of each. The core of the plan employs the PRINCE2 methodology, detailing its principles and aspects like scope, schedule, risk, and cost. The assignment then presents a detailed schedule for the 3-D printing project, outlining tasks, durations, and dependencies. It defines the project's scope, requirements, and deliverables, including both internal and external deliverables. Cost estimation is addressed, highlighting the importance of budgeting and cost control. The plan also covers human resources, risk assessment, quality control, and communication management within the project. The project aims to study and use the best suitable 3-D printing technology to develop a 3-D model, with a focus on identifying processes and technologies. The document concludes with a summary of the project's key components and objectives.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT
3-D PRINTING

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Appropriateness and limitations of the main project management methodologies.....................1
PRINCE2.....................................................................................................................................2
Schedule.......................................................................................................................................3
Scope............................................................................................................................................3
Requirements...............................................................................................................................3
Deliverables.................................................................................................................................4
Cost..............................................................................................................................................4
Time.............................................................................................................................................5
Human Resources........................................................................................................................5
Risk..............................................................................................................................................6
Quality Control............................................................................................................................6
Communication............................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Project management plan is an important part of a project which helps in describing every
phase of a project (Kerzner, 2017). It helps in planning, monitoring, executing, controlling and
closing of a project. This assignment will lay emphasis on schedule, scope, deliverables,
requirements, cost, human resource, time, risk, quality control and communication management
of project management plan. The topic chosen for this is 3-D printing.
MAIN BODY
Appropriateness and limitations of the main project management methodologies
In order to achieve desired results, goals within defined budget and schedule, it is
important to use an appropriate methodology. Methodologies help managers to plan, design,
implement and achieve desired project objectives. There are various kinds of project
management methodologies that can be used in different projects to achieve desired results but
few of the most commonly used methodologies are:
Waterfall:
 It is one of the oldest methodology that is used in project management. It is a sequential
methodology which is mainly based on clear, coincide heavy requirements. This
methodology is appropriate to be used when the requirements of the project are clearly
defined at the initial stage of the project.
 However, this methodology has few limitations such as no changes within the project can
be entertained (Eskerod and Jepsen, 2016). It is extremely important to define
requirements at the starting of the project. If any error occurs or something is needed to
be changed then the whole process is needed to be started from beginning.
Agile:
 It is another methodology used in project management. It helps in fulfilling waterfall
model limitations. It is appropriate to be used when the project is iterative in nature. It is
fast and flexible in nature.
 This method has its own limitations such as: there is no fixed plan for this method as it
mainly lay emphasis on changes as they occur. Due to this, it lacks in resource
management and maintaining project schedule.
Hybrid:
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 It is a combination of both agile and waterfall method. It helps in making the overall
approach of the project much more flexible.
 It has some limitations such as: in order to apply this methodology it is required to
compromise on requirements and flexibility in order to complete the project on time.
Project management plan
Project management plan is a document which is mainly used to describe all the tasks and
phases of a project. Project management plan consist of six main components that are: initiation,
planning, executing, monitoring, controlling and closing. There are various principles of PMP
described either using PRINCE2 or PMI. For this assignment PRINCE2 will be used.
PRINCE2
It is a project management method which is used to divide a project into controllable and
manageable stages which can be completed easily, efficiently in time and within the specified
budget (Hinde, 2018). It is used in various countries and is available in many languages. It has
six aspects known as performance goals, these goals helps in decision making process. Six
aspects of PRINCE2 are: Scope, timescale, risk, quality, benefits and cost. It is based upon seven
principles that cannot be compromised, which are:
 Business case should be updated after every stage of the project as it is the most
important document.
 Project log book should be maintained so that after each and every project phase learning
experience can be recorded and for the next time no mistakes or faults should be
recorded.
 Roles and responsibilities of each and every stakeholder should be defined.
 All the stages of the project should be defied and managed so that overall risk associated
with the project or its stages can be identified and reduced.
 Any kind of forecasted tolerance or exception should be handled and managed accurately
so that proper decisions cab be taken on ways to proceed further in the project (Hughes,
Dwivedi and Rana, 2017).
 Focus should be on the product that is required to be delivered by maintaining the quality
and fulfilling all the requirements.
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 PRINCE2 should be used in such a manner such that it suits the project environment i.e.
size, importance, complexity, risk, time etc. and after completion of every stage it should
be reviewed.
Schedule
It is important to make a schedule of a project so that all the tasks can be completed
within the defined time period and specified budget. For this, Complete project is divided into
sub tasks. In this schedule activities, tasks, project milestones, deliverables with duration in
which the task will be complete is specified and if all such things are not specified then at least
activities time duration is specified (Meredith, Mantel and Shafer, 2017). This complete 3-D
printing project will be completed within the scheduled time duration of 6 months.
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Task
Mode Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Manuall
y
Schedule
d
Stakeholder identification 11 days Mon 7/29/19 Mon 8/12/19
Auto
Schedule
d
identifying stakeholders 6 days Mon 7/29/19 Mon 8/5/19
Auto
Schedule
d
selecting stakeholders 5 days Tue 8/6/19 Mon 8/12/19 2
Auto
Schedule
d
Defining scope of the project 10 days Tue 8/13/19 Mon 8/26/19 1
Auto
Schedule
d
identifying area of project 7 days Tue 8/13/19 Wed 8/21/19 3
Auto
Schedule
d
selecting specified area of
project which is 3-D printing 10 days Tue 8/13/19 Mon 8/26/19 2,3
Auto
Schedule
d
Requirement analysis 11 days Tue 8/27/19 Tue 9/10/19 4
Auto
Schedule
d
analysing the requirment of
budget in 3-D printing 9 days Tue 8/27/19 Fri 9/6/19 6
Auto
Schedule
d
analysing the requirment of
raw materials in 3-D printing 11 days Tue 8/27/19 Tue 9/10/19 6
Auto
Schedule
d
Time frame and budget
analysis 4 days Wed 9/11/19 Mon 9/16/19 7
Auto
Schedule
d
analysis of budgetory
requirment in 3-D printing 4 days Wed 9/11/19 Mon 9/16/19 9
Auto
Schedule
d
Project plan 18 days Tue 9/17/19 Thu
10/10/19 10
Auto
Schedule
d
setting out of priority area 11 days Tue 9/17/19 Tue 10/1/19 11
Auto
Schedule
Complete planning for project 7 days Wed 10/2/19 Thu 10/10/19 11,13
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d
Auto
Schedule
d
Risk assessment 30 days Fri 10/11/19 Thu
11/21/19 12
Auto
Schedule
d
Risk analysis in 3-D printing 11 days Fri 10/11/19 Fri 10/25/19 14
Auto
Schedule
d
Risk identification in 3-D
printing 9 days Mon
10/28/19 Thu 11/7/19 14,16
Auto
Schedule
d
Risk ranking in 3-D printing 9 days Mon
10/28/19 Thu 11/7/19 16
Auto
Schedule
d
Risk mitigation in 3-D
printing 10 days Fri 11/8/19 Thu 11/21/19 16,17
Auto
Schedule
d
Designing and
implementation of 3-D
printing
23 days Fri 11/22/19 Tue
12/24/19 15
Auto
Schedule
d
designing of 3-D printing
software 9 days Fri 11/22/19 Wed 12/4/19 19
Auto
Schedule
d
implementation of 3-D
printing software 14 days Thu 12/5/19 Tue 12/24/19 21
Auto
Schedule
d
Closing and completion of the
project 9 days Wed
12/25/19 Mon 1/6/20 20
Scope
It is a part of project planning where documentation and determination of project goals,
features, functions, tasks and many more things are defined and documented. It is one of the
main thing that is required to complete the project as based on the goals of the project
requirements, deliverables and overall cost of a project is decided (Fleming and Koppelman,
2016). The main goal of this project is “To study and use the best suitable 3-D printing
technology to develop a 3-D model”. Defining a scope of the project helps in completing the
overall project on time and in an accurate manner where project objectives and goals can be
achieved and all the deliverables of the project can be delivered on time. This project is
important to be carried out because it will help in knowing and implementing 3-D printing
technologies. There are various technologies and processes that are used in 3-D printing. This
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project will identify such processes and technologies that can be used for 3-D printing. However,
this project has few constraints that are needed to be considered such as: This project is needed
to be completed within 6 months of time duration and resources that can be used to complete the
project are also limited.
Requirements
In this part, requirements of the project are collected. It is mainly done in three main steps
which are: in the first step importance of all the identified requirement is defined, then persons
who will be responsible for handling those requirements are identified and in third steps all the
requirements are documented and assumptions are made (Nicholas and Steyn, 2017). This
project is based upon identifying technologies used in 3-D printing. In order to complete this 3-D
printing project following requirements are needed to be fulfilled: knowledge about 3-D
printing, stakeholders involved within the project, main deliverables of the project, identification
of machinery or technology that will be used within this project, model for which 3-D printing is
required to be done.
Deliverables
Deliverables of a project are one of the most important part of a project as it helps in
completing any project on time and deliver it on time. It simply helps in identifying what is
needed to be delivered within the project. Scope, work breakdown structure of a project should
be based on these deliverables. Deliverables of a project are mainly of three types: project
deliverables, planning deliverables, activity deliverables (Lientz and Rea, 2016). Project
deliverables is further of two types internal and external deliverables. Internal deliverables are:
training, testing, configuration etc. external deliverables are: study and use accurate 3-d printing
technology to develop a 3-D model. Planning deliverables are: scheduling, budgeting, artefacts
of projects, management plans etc. Activity deliverables are: meetings, status reports, reviews
etc. These deliverables help in maintaining the flow of the project, maintain quality of the
project, measure and test each and every quality standards at every stage of the project so that
final external deliverables can be successfully delivered.
Cost
Cost is one of the most important part of a project as it helps in deciding the overall
budget of the project as per the activities and desirables of the project. Cost estimation uses
historical judgements and information in order to develop cost estimation of current project. It is
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done in phases with the help of work breakdown structure of the project. The new and innovative
software used for software development helps in doing cost estimation of the entire project
(Kerzner, 2018). After doing the cost estimation, cost management plan is made. Cost
management plan helps in planning cost of the entire project based on the overall budget of the
project decided by the client. This helps in maintaining the cost and reducing the chances of
exceeding budget. In order to do cost estimation, there are few important steps that should be
followed such as: it should be done in defined accuracy level, cost should be reported and
tracked in a continuous manner, bifurcation of both direct and indirect cost should be done. If
any kind of change control procedure is been followed then change in cost estimation should also
be done. Cost associated with the project are:
 Labour cost: £300
 Equipment cost: £500
 Material cost: £250
 Other cost: £150
So, the overall cost required for completion of this 3-D printing project is £1200.
Time
One of the most important part in project management is time. It is required to know the
overall time duration within which project is needed to be completed. Based on the time period
within which the project is needed to be completed helps in deciding the overall schedule of the
project (Marchewka, 2016). It also helps in defining the start and the end date of the project
within which project is to be started and completed. This project to develop a 3-D model using 3-
D printing technology will be completed within the time duration of 6 months. In order to
complete the project within 6 months, Schedule management plan will be made which will help
in defining the time period of all the activities. Based on the Schedule management plan, activity
process will be defined which will help in identifying needs to complete the activity. So that no
activity is delayed due to delayed needs and requirement. Then based on this complete schedule
of the project is defined with Gantt Chary which helps in allocation of required resources of
specific activities, time period within which it is to be completed.
Human Resources
Human Resources is another important part of a project which help in successful
completion of a project. In order to complete this 3-D printing project, it is important define
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required human resource involved within the project. Effective use of human resource of the
project is also important. For this, first of all required human resources of the project are
identified, then their roles and responsibilities are defined, then training and development needs
required by the human resource are identified (Kerzner, 2019). Human resource required for this
project are many but few most important of them are: project manager, team manager,
programmers and testers.
Project manager: Project manager is the head of entire project under whom this whole project
will be completed. Their main role and responsibility is to allot work, approve work, assign
duties, update requirements and tract deliverables of the project.
Team manager: Team manager helps in managing work of whole team and their check whether
their roles and responsibilities are being fulfilled.
Team members: their main role is to complete the task on time within the allocated budget.
Testers: their main role is to test the the deliverables i.e. whether the quality is maintained or not,
whether all the requirements has been fulfilled or not.
Risk
It is important to identify all kinds of risks associated with the project. Risk management
is an important part of a project as it helps in identifying risks associated with the project, their
impact on the project, risk level. Many times some unexpected risk occur within the project that
can work as a hindrance within completion of the project or might create problem within the
completion of the project. Risk management is done in three steps that are:
 First of all risk identification is done where the type of risk, its level and potential is
identified, category within which it has occurred and project management activity which
will get affected by it is identified (Heldman, 2018). In this project the it is extremely
important to identify all kinds of risk associated with 3-D printing as if risks in later
stages is identified then it will hamper the overall project.
 After risk identification, its risk potential is identified which helps in evaluating the
potential loss associated with the risk and its impact from low to high. Then a strategy is
chosen through which risk can be removed.
 Then risk mitigation strategy is chosen which helps in either eliminating the risk or
reducing its impact on the project. There are four main types risk mitigation strategies,
explained below:
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◦ Risk avoidance is first strategy which used if applicable i.e. if any kind of riks can be
avoided then it is tried to be avoided.
◦ Shared risk: If avoidance is not possible them risk is shared with other activities in
order to reduce its effect.
◦ Risk reduction: If risk cannot be shared then it is tried to be reduced using various
methods.
◦ Risk transfer: If risk can be transferred or shifted from one part of the project to
another then it is tried to be done.
Quality Control
Another important part of project management plan is quality control which helps in
reducing the overall risks and errors associated with the project such that they can meet desired
goals and objectives of the project. Quality control of a project is mainly done in three steps, that
are: First quality planning is done where quality matrix and checklist is made. Second step is
quality assurance in which quality matrix is checked by conducting quality audit. Then based on
quality assurance quality control is performed by taking quality control measurements.
Communication
Communication is another very important part of a project as 80 percent of project
success or failure depends upon proper and accurate communication. It helps in delivering
correct message or information from sender to receiver or to whole project team. Proper
communication can be managed within a team by conducting face to face meetings, organizing
daily meeting, discussing project progress, through indirect communication i.e. through emails
etc. On the basis of this, a project management plan is made which helps in maintaining and
managing effective communication.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment, it has been concluded that it is important to adopt a project
management method like PRINCE2 or PMI as they help in developing a project management
plan for the project. Following these steps has help in delivering 3-D printing project within 6
months.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Eskerod, P. and Jepsen, A.L., 2016. Project stakeholder management. Routledge.
Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management.
Project Management Institute.
Heldman, K., 2018. PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John Wiley &
Sons.
Hinde, D., 2018. PRINCE2 Study Guide: 2017 Update. John Wiley & Sons.
Hughes, D.L., Dwivedi, Y.K. and Rana, N.P., 2017. Mapping IS failure factors on PRINCE2®
stages: An application of interpretive ranking process (IRP). Production Planning &
Control. 28(9). pp.776-790.
Kerzner, H., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. 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. Wiley.
Lientz, B. and Rea, K., 2016. Breakthrough technology project management. Routledge.
Marchewka, J.T., 2016. Information technology project management: Providing measurable
organizational value. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J.R., Mantel Jr, S.J. and Shafer, S.M., 2017. Project management: a managerial
approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Routledge.
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