BSV11101 School of Engineering & the Built Environment Assignment Sample

BSV11101 School of Engineering & the Built Environment

Coursework Scenario

This coursework requires you to undertake some programming activity and present various completed critical path network analyses, barcharts, costings and a time/ cost optimisation.

Please note that the scenario described below is wholly hypothetical!

For this coursework, you are to assume the role of a Project Manager who is focussing their attention on the construction phase of a particular project.

This project consists of the construction of a new aircraft maintenance facility. The design stage of this project has now been completed.
At this stage, one of the planners in your team has already completed a WBS for all of the tasks that are necessary for the construction of the building. An initial Project Logic Evaluation based on the tasks included in this WBS and this Project Logic Evaluation has now been passed to you in the form of a Network Diagram in Appendix 1).

Estimations of task durations for each of the14 tasks have been completed following the PERT approach. The estimates for Do, Dm and Dp are based on your company’s normal working practices. Costings for the normal daily costs of tasks have also been estimated and Crash durations and extra costs for accelerating tasks to their lowest durations by making use of overtime have also been calculated.

This information has also been passed to you for your attention in Appendix 2). Please note that in this particular exercise, no materials costs are included since these will remain the same regardless of how the project is scheduled.

Note that the normal working practice means performing tasks at their expected durations.

‘Crashing’ is not the normal working practice and this involves increasing the number of hours worked by human resources and plant and equipment during any one day period through the use of overtime. This enables the durations of some tasks to be accelerated (reduced) to ‘speed up’ specific tasks if there is an advantage to so doing.

You are now required to complete the tasks described under section 3 (next page).

Need 5th Question only

Q. Having re-planned the project for this resource constraint, the project is now underway. The following tasks have already been completed: ‘Clear Site’, ‘Install Ground Drainage’,‘Excavate and Construct Raft and Floor Slab’, ‘Construct Columns L/H side’, ‘Construct

Columns R/H side and ‘Install Roof Trusses’. However, unfortunately during the execution of the ‘Construct Columns L/H side’ and ‘Construct Columns R/H side’ there were problems with high winds that interfered with the safe working of the crane and ultimately this delayed the completion of these two tasks.

The ‘Construct Columns L/H side’ task took 2 days longer to complete than was originally scheduled and the ‘Construct Columns R/H side’ task took 1 additional day to complete compared to the original schedule.

The direct costs for each of these tasks will not increase as a consequence of these delays because the contractor has decided to absorb the additional direct costs in a goodwill gesture acknowledging the problems they caused earlier by only supplying one crane.

However, the project is now further delayed and further penalty costs (which are not included within the direct costs the contractor will absorb) will now be incurred. As Project Manager, it is your responsibility to try to make sure the remainder of the project is completed as optimally as it can be.
This requires you to re-plan the remainder of the project, accelerating the delivery of tasks that can be crashed by using overtime and thereby minimising the remaining cost of completing the project including any penalty costs.

Using the crash data in Appendix 2, re-plan the remaining tasks in the project, so that the most optimum solution for the delivery of the project, in light of the problems experienced, will now be achieved.

When ‘crashing’ the remaining tasks to determine the optimum solution, you must assume that it is an ‘all or nothing’ scenario; in other words, incremental ‘crashing’ of tasks is not permissible.

Solution

Task-5

As per given information in the brief, it has been identified that due to the issues during the execution of two main tasks including ‘Constructing Columns L/H side and Constructing Columns R/H side’, the project has faced the issue of delay. As per the MBA Assignment Experts Consequently, the task ‘Constructing Columns L/H side’ took 2 days more to accomplish and another task ‘Constructing Columns R/H side’ took 1 more day to accomplish which is more than the estimated original time. In way, the project schedule has been affected completely which will furtherly influence remaining task’s execution and delivery. To ensure its delivery in minimum time & cost affecting format, it is essential to re-plan the remaining project tasks without incrementing the crashing time.  So, the remaining tasks will be planned according to the best possible acceleration of delivery in which the crashing time will be managed accordingly. The table of remaining activities excluding “clear site, install ground drainage and excavate & construct raft & floor slab”, are re-planned below-

This table has been designed as per the total delay in activities 4 & 5. The delay took 2 days more for activity 4 and 1 day more for activity 5 which means the total delay of project is 3 days. In complete re-planning, the crash time is not increased because it was not allowed (as per given instruction in brief). 

As a manager, to accelerate the project/task deliveries, the tasks will be arranged for overtime work so, that the delayed 3 days can be covered. The installing of roof trusses activity, attaching roof cladding and wall cladding panels will be not scheduled for overtime because it will require more workers, lights, & other safety which will increase cost (Irfan et al. 2020). Installing hanger doors activity will be scheduled for overtime and workers can finish it in night shifts which will only increase labor costs and 12 hours will be covered. Similarly, activities 10,11,12 cannot be scheduled for overtime as it will risky and costly. So, activity 13 can be scheduled for overnight in which 36 hours can be covered so, total of 2 days is adjusted. Similarly, in activity 14, commissioning & cleaning processes can be scheduled for overnight only for 2 days so, that 1 day will cover that delay gap. This way, the project task’s delivery will be accelerated without penalty cost. Only labor costs will be increased which is minimum increment for this delay. Hence, the overall project will be re-planned by adjusting the delays and saving the additional/major costs (Miguel et. al. 2019). 

References

Irfan, M., Zahoor, H., Abbas, M. and Ali, Y., 2020. Determinants of labor productivity for building projects in Pakistan. Journal of Construction Engineering, Management & Innovation, 3(2), pp.85-100. https://doi.org/10.31462/jcemi.2020.02085100

Miguel, A., Madria, W. and Polancos, R., 2019, April. Project management model: Integrating earned schedule, quality, and risk in earned value management. In 2019 IEEE 6th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Applications (ICIEA) (pp. 622-628). IEEE. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Wira-Madria/publication/333152179_Project_Management_Model_Integrating_Earned_Schedule_Quality_and_Risk_in_Earned
_Value_Management/links/5eda0ad792851c9c5e81883c/Project-Management-Model-Integrating-Earned-Schedule-Quality-and-Risk-in-Earned-Value-Management.pdf