A Case Study On Project Management Of

Woodys: Custom Woodworking

Submitted To:
Prof. A.B Raju

Submitted By:
Harsha Silan (136)
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About Company
Woodys Company is a small-to-medium sized furniture manufacturing, cabinet making and hardwood importing company. Because of the longer production runs and higher and more consistent mark-ups, the company has started to provide the subcontracting work by installing and supplying counter-tops, cabinets and other similar fittings for a new commercial construction. At the current moment, Woodys Company gained a good reputation for supplying millwork to the construction industry and producing well constructed furniture with an attractive design. Ron Carpenter was the one, who started a small business in 1954 and now is a Chairman anda Chief Executive officer of the Custom Woodworking Company, his wife Emelia is being the Company President and their son John is the Director. The Company is privately held and has 850 employees. Companys total assets at the end of year 199X were $181,000,000, sales $93,250,000 with net earnings of $6,540,000 (Wideman,2011). Main Woodys company shareholder is Emelia Holdings Ltd.

1. Project Concept and Strategy

a. Was the Woody 2000 project well conceived? Give reasons for your opinion. Ans. No. The Woody 2000 project was not conceived up to the mark, it was having few flaws. Reasons for my opinion: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. There was no requirement of dust free paint. No requirement of renovating presidents and executive vice president's offices. They agreed to expand 25% of the land in the production field, but they didn't study if they really need this expanding or not. The approximate of the project were 17 million $ and Woody approved it within 18 months without checking if these estimates are correct or not. The arrangement of the key person and the distribution of the work steps are not cleared.

b. What were Woody's real objectives that could and should have been articulated? Ans. The main point of the whole project should be expanding the production area, automate the process in electronic way and repaint the CEO and the president offices. c. What strategies were there for achieving these objectives? What would you recommend? Ans. There is no any strategy here. There was no any clear plan. The budget estimation was taking after the brainstorming not because a real calculations. The key players here play in wrong way, that because either they were kept in unsuitable position in the project or because the lack of information. d. Did they consider other solutions? Give Examples. Ans. Yes they thought about transferring the factory to another place. With only little amount of details, they decided to stay where they are. In another way, Author can say that sometimes the alternative solution looks very coasty. e. How would you gauge the project's success? Could success be measured? If so, when? Ans. The successful project is the one which finishes in the time or earlier, give good results; mission and vision should be clear and more extra.

2. Project Scope
a. Why do you suppose renovation of the President and Executive Vice President's offices were included in the project and was that a good idea? Ans. Author thinks that it was kind of Extravagance. If the CEO wanted to paint the offices. Let him do it in any time and by any cost. But it should be out of the project hours. b. Write a simple project scope statement. Ans. Project Scope Statement: Project Name: Woody 2000 Owner : Carpenter, Ron Objective : Expand the factory, Automate the workflow processes. Cost : $ 17 million. Time : 18 months. Extra work : Repainting the ceo and the president offices.

c. Develop a work breakdown structure. Ans. Work Breakdown Structure

Woody 2000

Definition

Preparing

Execution

Define Plan

Getting Estimations

Preparing The Land

Pour The Foundation

Holding-down The Bolts For Train

Define Time Frame

Signing Contracts

Install Airconditions

Define Budget

Install Hardwere And Softwere For The Automation Processes.

Painting The CEO And The Presedent Office.

3. Project Planning
a. What should be included in a Woody 2000 project plan? What use would it be? Ans. To have good plan, Woody should study his case in better manner, giving the right budget and time estimation. And assigning the right key player in the right position, with describing the scope of each stage. b. Evaluate Woody's plans for managing the project, including their approach to contracting for professional services and construction work. What would you have done and would that change for successive phases of the project? Ans. In the author thoughts, that there were no real plan here. All what happened here is a dissection between the key players in some meetings. And the decision came out without any realistic information. Also the contract with the EID Company was without a clear plan. For that EID assumes many points either Woody 2000 need it or not which at the end raised the cost. c. Did the project plan explain how the project and any changes would be controlled? Should this be part of the plan? Give reasons. Ans. No, the project plan didn't explain the full main roll to define the changes. It was very poor plan.

4. Quality
a. How should quality be approached, and what does it mean? Ans. To meager the quality, the estimate project time and the budget should be in the same way as proposed or less not exceeded for more time or extra budget as same as approved in the project plan. b. Why did Leadbetter not invoke the specifications to ensure quality? What was the result? Ans. Here, leadbetter was new in project management experience. He made some improvement in the beginning. But because his poor managing knowledge and because of the Woody 2000 poor plan, for that he could not find out the deliverables. Something else, he was not responsible enough with Mr. Moneysworth, so they tacked vacation in the same time and left the whole project and the (S&P) were submitting a page for approval. Because of their vacation, there were no any reply or to submit the approval. And this satiation cost suspending the project time frame to another extra two weeks. c. What is the importance of Quality to a project like this? Ans. Any kind of work either big or small job needs quality. So how a project like Woody 2000 doesnt need it?? If there quality control in this project, then it should be successful. Many mistakes 6

happened because of the absence of the quality control. By listing the mistakes you will find that the quality needs in each part of the project. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. The way of planning the project and taking the decision to change. The contract with EID Company without returning to any of the Woody production experts. The way of estimating the budget and the cost. The way of taking change management decision like what happened with leadbetter when the new equipment arrived. Two project manager were absent in the same time without any temporary replacement. The errors in the construction phase, because of the changes which happened by faster. The project at the end been out of control because the budget and time exceeding. At the end of the project and because of what happened, Woody loses his customers, some of the main contract with another party, the competitors have taken more space in the market instead of his product.

The company can avoid all of these mistakes by setting the quality control from the beginning of the project to the end of it.

5. Planning and Scheduling

a. Identify and describe a set of project schedule milestones from project concept to project completion. Ans. The project milestones are: by correct panning the budget of the project will be clear, setting a good schedule of the work, so each one will know what is his role in the project, when he should begin his role and when he should complete it and the cost of this role. Having a clear and specific contract which meets the project needs not more than it needs or less. The equipment and machines should be suitable for the project needs and installed correctly. Having a certificate of the project completion. Begin the production phase. b. Illustrate your milestones on a simple bar chart scaled to the information provided in the Case Study.

Ans. The Chart of milestones:

6 5 planing (budget, Schedual) 4 3 2 1 0 Woody Project Millestone Clear and specific Contract install suitable equipments and machines getting certificate of completion begin working and production

c. Would a good baseline plan have helped to show that the project would not meet its schedule? If so, how? Ans. If the plan were planned in a good manner, Woody should clearly know what was happing in each phase. The good baseline plan means every task will be scheduled by time and budget. So it will be easy to figure any problem happened by following up the whole tasks in the project. So, the manager can stop any out of control task or payment. And he can come in in any phase to add or fix any errors. In another way, by baseline plan, the manager will get a full view of the project progress, showing up the strength and weaknesses in each task.

6. Cost Estimating
a. Develop a high-level estimate by "guesstimation". Ans. $ 22 million, as Cashman predict in the beginning. Another addition has been there to end the project. It estimated by author with less than $24 million. b. How should the estimate be presented? Ans. The estimates should be built from the beginning of the plan with the schedule.

c. Is life-cycle costing a factor on this project? Ans. Yes of course, Cashman had made his estimation in the beginning that the 4 beginning month and the last 4 month will cost $ 1 million, the other 10 months costs as he estimated $1.4 million. That means that any extra months or days in the schedule will add more cost to the project. d. Cashman kept his cash flow chart a secret. Why, and what would you have done? Ans. Cashman should not keep the cash-flow chart as a secret. To be working in a good project environment, all the information should distributed and the key players should be transparent with other. Keeping like this information as a secret may be keep him in awkward position.

7. Contracting for Engineering and Construction Services

a. What were the contracting alternatives open to Woody's? Which would have been best and what would that have involved? Ans. Moneysworth didnt allow any competitor to be in the view in front of Woody. Moneysworth thinks that he chooses the best company from his point view, and he didnt research for another contractor. b. How should the contract(s) be organized and tendered? Ans. To choose a contractor, Moneysworth should search for the alternative companies that can provide the same services. Study their services and the costs that they provide with each service. Also before choosing a contractor, the plan should be clear and accepted from the key players and the experts from Woody company before submitting the plan for a third party. c. How should they be administered? Ans. They are administrated by keeping a plan for following up and this plan should be reviewed with more than one key player. d. Were the original Woody 2000 project requirements delivered? Ans. The project was delivered after Woody lost his customers, lost some contracts, lost the trust of his customers, lost more the project budget and lost the scheduled time.

8. Communication and People Management

a. Draw a project organization chart. What were the real relationships? Ans. Project Organization Chart
Chairman and CEO Ron Carpenter President Emelia Carpenter Exceutive Vice Presedent Kim Qualey VP Finance and Administration Spencer Moneysworth VP Sales and Estimation Bruce Sharp Woddy Project Manager Ian Leadbetter EID Director Alfred Fowler Tinknokers Assoiaties Amos Dent EID Project Manager Ivar Kontrak I C Rain LTD. Charlie Droppe Piecemeal Corporation Eddie Forgot S&P Principal Randy Schemers Beam Constraction LTD. Dave Rivett Zapp Electric Co. Olaf Volta Classic Cladding Co. Bert Leakey Controller Kim Cashman

Director John Carpenter

VP Production Mile Faster

VP Personnel Molly Bussell

Project Management Consultant Win Easley

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b. Should Leadbetter have been left to run the project? Would training have helped? Ans. Leadbetter shouldnt lead the project. Because he is dont know much about the management. If they kept him as an assistant to help and learn it was be more efficient. c. How should the Woody 2000 project plan be communicated and when? Ans. Moneysworth who made the contract with EID, he should gather all the key players and the production employees in meeting to take the final decision and get with a proper plan. And that will ease their work in estimating the budget and the schedule. This all should happen in the beginning of the project. d. What communication (coordination) would you expect to see during execution? Ans. If you want to know how the communication is important, you will find it in this study. When Faster changed the disruption of the production line: Leadbetter had to implement the whole automation again (lose time and cost). When Leadbetter and Moneysworth were in holiday, there is no any acting employee instead of them can take the action of the pending issue. When Leadbetter contact with Amos Dent without discussing this issue with Mr. Kontrak. All these are viewing the mass of communication which affect the project improvement, budget and schedule. The communication should be in a very good manner taking care of the business hierarchy. Including the company experts in the decisions. Any decision should be approved from more than one key player in company itself. Because these decisions will affect the whole project implementation.

9. Progress Monitoring and Control

a. Would a good baseline plan have helped to make up time? Ans. A base line plan will give the full information for each stage; each employee will be working in a clear and transparent environment. That helps everyone to work very smoothly understanding the project needs, taking the responsibility of the assigned tasks. This manner will lead to successful project which can end in a very sufficient way with the minimal cost and by the scheduled time.

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b. Draw a responsibility chart for effective control. Ans. Responsibility Chart for effective control:
Task Amelia Carpenter Moneysw orth Cashman Lead better Faster Kontrak Sharp Bussell

Manage Project Arrange cash flow Meeting with production employees Meet EID Specify the needs in production Develop the software Schedule the project Configure machines Contact authority inspection

Test the contract deliverables Budget solver issue Marketing the product Taking care of the resolving issues in the project

c. What would you have done when you saw that the project would not meet its schedule? Ans. If it been realized that the project didnt meet the schedule, a meeting should be prepared after studying all what had been done to discover the bottle nick area which cause this overdue. The bottle nick should been identified, prepare the schedule in very important manner to catch up the main schedule time. Working in full swing to complete the late task. d. Project records were apparently poor. What records should have been kept and how? Ans. All the tasks, notes, plans, budgets, change tasks, contract, decisions and other administration work should be recorded in a formal way not by hand and archived properly.

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10. Cost Control

a. Why was EID's first price so high? Was their position reasonable? Ans. EID is an external company which wants to do the assigned work with the highest profit. This was because they found that Woody Company has not prepared a proper plan. And because the Woody representative was weak in the production knowledge. And all what he want to show other key players that he can lead the project in a good manner without referring to the Woody expert knowledge. b. When did Woody's know they were in trouble with over expenditure? What was the result? Ans. Woody knows about the trouble after he find that the project is behind the schedule and the budget were exceeded the limitations, and the other companies canceled their contracts with Woody. The result was that the company began to throw the money here and there trying to solve the problem. But with all of these tries, he lost the whole project control. c. How should the project budget and expenditures be set out for cost control? Ans. When you are planning and budgeting any project you should consider the cost of the emergency and failure situations that may be happened. And also keep in mind that may so changes happened during the process which will need extra costs. d. Draw a simple flow chart for processing changes? Ans. Flow chart for processing changes:

Request For Change Studing The Change Studing The Change And The Needed Costs Approving The Change Study And Its Cost Plan How The Change Will Take Place Implement The Change

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