Project Management (Part B) Analysis: Schedule and Resources

This document presents a solution to the "Introduction to Project Management (Part B)" assignment, focusing on schedule analysis and resource management. It begins by establishing project assumptions, including working days and student IDs, which determine the project's start date. The solution analyzes a project schedule file, identifying the critical path and the impact of annual holidays on the project's completion date. It then explores schedule compression techniques, suggesting ways to reduce project duration by modifying activities on the critical path and reallocating resources. Furthermore, the assignment examines resource leveling using MSP (Microsoft Project), discussing how to balance resources to optimize project efficiency. It also assesses the impact of resource constraints on the project's finish date, concluding that the provided resources did not pose any constraints.

Introduction to Project Management
(Part B)
Name of University
Name Student ID Signature
Dated: September 15, 2017
Assumptions:

1. Working days in a week = 5 days (between Monday to Friday)
2. Student IDs are 4580316, 4580309 and 4580896. So the addition of first digit is 4 + 4
+ 4 = 12. Hence the start date of the project ‘Victoria Construction Pty Ltd Schedule’
is June 1, 2016 + 12 days = June 13, 2016
Schedule Highlights of ‘ProjectSchedulePartA1.mpp’:
a) Overall duration: 251 days
b) Start date: June 13, 2016
Finish date: May 29, 2017
c) Critical Path (Stelth, 2009): the path of project activities having 0 TS or TF forms
critical path. The path is ‘M7: Batch of field ready tablets ready for use (end of
project)’, ‘1.1.2.4.4.4 Report D’, ‘1.2.2.5.4 Report D’, ‘1.2.2.5.5 Review and
Approval’, ‘1.3.2.4.2 Report B’ & ‘1.3.2.4.3 Report C’, then ‘1.5.2 Tests of report
generation with field data’, ‘1.5.3 Review’, ‘1.5.4 Modification and Testing’, ‘1.6.1
User Interface (in field) and interface to Server (from field)’, ‘1.6.2 Tests of report
generation with field data’, ‘1.6.3 Review’, ‘1.6.4 Modification and Testing’, ‘1.7
Production Approval’, ‘1.8 Produce batch of Tablets for use in field’ and ‘M7:
Batch of field ready tablets ready for use (end of project)’.
d) Impact of Annual holidays: till the occasion from December 23, 2016 to January 4,
2017 was excluded the project complete date was May 29, 2017. In any case, once
the occasions are entered, the project complete date updated to June 9, 2017.
e) Schedule compression (Lee, 2013) by 3 weeks: to compress the schedule by 3 weeks,
we shall target the major activities in CRITICAL PATH. Reduce 1 week from the
activity ‘1.3.2.4.2 Report B’ & ‘1.3.2.4.3 Report C’ by involving more Software
Engineer (SE) to review the reports and reduce 2 weeks from ‘1.8 Produce batch of
Tablets for use in field’ by doubling the resources Software Engineer (SE) and
Electronic Engineer (EE).

Schedule Highlights of ‘ProjectSchedulePartA2.mpp’:
a) MSP & Resource Leveling (Dubey, 2015): the over allocated resources can be
leveled either by expanding the time of the task, which implies the venture is should
have been postponed or adding the resources to finish the work in scheduled time.
But there is another way which MS Project adopts is by balancing the resources from
non-critical activity to the critical so that bot the work can complete with the available
resources and within the time too. So by automatically resources can be leveled in
MSP software.
b) Critical Path: since the resource available for the job was more than the requirement
so there is no change in dates or the critical path has happened. The full time
resources were more than required so rearranging of activities and shifting the final
completion data is not required and the critical path remained the same.
c) Impact of resource constraints (Stelth, 2009) on project finish date: as the resources
were not the constraints in the project, so there has not been any shifting of final
completion date from the earlier file when the leveling was not performed. But the
date has changed only by introducing the holidays from 23rd December to 4th January.
References:
Dubey, A. (2015). Resource Levelling for a Construction Project. IOSR Journal of Mechanical
and Civil Engineering (IOSR-JMCE), 05-11.
Lee, G. (2013). Schedule Compression using Fuzzy set Theory and Contractors Judgement.
Journa of Information Technology in Constructin, 64-75.
Stelth, P. (2009). Projects’ Analysis through CPM (Critical Path Method). School of Doctoral
Studies (European Union) Journal, 10-51.