Biogas Production Project Optimization: A Guide

Stakeholder Analysis

Question:

Discuss About The Guide Project Management Body Of Knowledge?

A mixture of methane and carbon dioxide is called biogas which is produced from biological materials found in the organic waste through degradation of bacteria in absence of oxygen. As it is produced using waste treatment, biogas is considered as a renewable energy source. Globally, many countries have adopted methods to produce biogas including Germany, Sweden, and more. The biogas production projects are financially supported by regulatory and government bodies across nations. This project would involve production of biogas in Australia. The project would involve development and implementation of biogas optimizer software that would enhance the competitiveness of the biogas producer by accelerating the production processes, reducing the downtime, and reducing the investments through the efficient use of small digesters.

Stakeholder	Role Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	Requirements	Expectation	Influence	Classification
Government official	Manager	Need to know how the production would affect society, business and people	Availability of all the performance and regulatory compliance data	High	Government
NGO Volunteer	Social Service Manager	Need to know how the production would affect society, and people	Availability of all the people and environment related data	Low	NGO
Individuals and companies using biogas	Multiple stakeholders	Specifications and functionalities that gets added upon development of the software for optimization and the benefits to be communicated	The biogas should provide efficient fuel for use in the factories or for personal needs.	High	Customers
Staff	Multiple employees	Training on how the system would be used and communication about how it would impact their working	Effective training and support for understanding new systems working	Moderate	Employees
Educational institutes	Principals	Understand the impact of new systems and technologies on biogas production, employment of students post graduation in the production unit	guidance and training to students through various programs	Low	Institutions
Parts, electricity, housekeeping, labour, and transportation suppliers	Multiple	Order as per the requirement of the production	An advance communication for the order and information on the desired specifications of parts	High	Suppliers
News Media and PR persons	Multiple	Receive the information to be disclosed publically	Get the correct, latest and accurate information that is of public interest	Moderate	Media
Residents living nearby	Multiple	Communicate the changes made in the plant systems if they would affect the public in some way	Assurance of no adverse social or environmental impacts to the locality as a result of development	Low	Local Residents (Kushta, 2012)

The current business processes of an organization would be studied and the site would be prepared for the adoption of the new optimization software. For this, the baseline production facilities have to be assessed and then Biogas Optimizer has to be demonstrated such that results can be verified to understand if the optimizer has served its purpose. The baseline information about the production of biogas would be collected so that a comparison can be made between the performance of the biogas unit before and after the implementation of the optimizer  (Mela, et al., 2015).

This demonstration of optimizer would be carried out in four phases including the trial phase where the optimizer would only be tested for basic application, full scale testing in all features would be tested including recommendations followed by an adjusting period in which the plant systems would follow the recommendations and apply the same to the production unit to bring improvements and lastly, another full scale testing would be done after modifications are done to understand if the production parameters are improved after the installation of Optimizer. This would include measurements of production efficiency and reactor capacity utilization (Cook, 2008)

The project would be committed to support any requirements for the reconciliation with the traditional owners in Australia including indigenous and non-indigenous people. For this, the traditional owners would be acknowledged and recognized wherever their training is required. Respect would be paid to the elderly people who played important roles in past for the development of the community. An acknowledge statement would be prepared which would show the commitment of the owners of the project for reconciliation and would also recognize the responsibilities of project owners and other institutions. The statement would recognize the following:

• That the indigenous residents in Australia living on the lands are the traditional owners of the land and thus, have their own associations
• The associations that are treasured by the traditional owners respect the culture, spirituality, art, law, and culture of Australia
• Traditional owners are important as they have made contribution to the development of the community and the land where biogas plant has been established
• Traditional owners can provide equitable participation in the development of community for which they should be provided with sufficient resources and must be respected for their contribution
• Reconciliation process is important for building relationships between the indigenous and non-indigenous people living in the nearby land in Australia(Baltzan & Phillips, 2016)

• Provide reconciliation to gather the support from the nearby residents, communities and institutes over time
• Redress any disadvantages that people in the community have by providing them required education through various social, cultural and academic programs
• Incorporate the learning in the nearby institutes and universities curriculum
• Encourage people from communities to take part in resource for identification and resolution of local issues
• Provide guidance and resources to encourage researches by the indigenous communities on subjects of importance while maintaining ethics
• Encourage the staff of the plan to carry out activities that allow traditional owners to present their perspectives in research processes
• Increase awareness of the cultures and issues to promote the reconciliation in local communities
• Recruit, select and support the development of the local staff in development and implementation
• Develop and implement policies for management of the cultural diversity in the organization
• Create an environment in the company that respects the rights and interests of traditional owners of Australia.
• Acknowledge the contribution of the Australian staff and students by providing those awards and recognition(QUT, 2017).

Software Requirements Specification (SRS)

A set of Software Requirements Specification (SRS) documents would be prepared which would include details of the functionalities of the optimizer system. It would cover the details of features, user interface, hardware requirement, software requirement, related terminologies, technical dependencies, key milestones, external interface requirements, performance requirements, safety needs, security needs, and other attributes that may be important to the user. The main SRS document would have the following sections or areas covered:

Project Scope: The Optimizer would have two components including client-side interface that would run on systems of users and server-side application that would be connected to the biogas production system. The document would explain the architecture, interaction, and working of these two components.

Product Features: Key features and functionalities of the Optimizer would be outlined in the document. Essential features can include online monitoring of bio-reactors, protection from overload and disturbance, and facilitation of close to maximum capacity operation in reactors keeping safety margins. Besides there, there could be additional features that would be added at later stages if required.

Process Characteristics:  The processes used in the plant for biogas production would have certain characteristics that would be recorded in SRS such as site classification, reactor types, operating modes, measurement requirements, biogas utilization, and digester volume.

Potential Scenarios: Different situations where the users of the plant would be using the optimizer would be visualized as different scenarios and the same would be tested for reliability, users-friendliness, accuracy, and exception handling.

Operating Environment: The system would not have any hardware constraints and it is not graphic intensive. The application is self-contained with required software components that can be connected to the production systems directly through the server.

Design Constraints: design has to be created considering the needed efficiencies of the system such that the interfaces are advanced in system handling but not in graphical usages.

User Documentation: Documents would be prepared for providing training and guidance to the users through help menu inclusion in the software and tutorial documents. Tutorials would teach the users about how the application works and how it can be used by them.

Business continuity plan is prepared to ensure that an organization keeps running in the situation of a major interruption to its operations such as a disaster that happens unexpectedly. The objective of the plan is to minimize the damages and keep the organization competitive. Traditionally, disaster recovery systems were used to restore the data that was lost in the cases of disaster which involved development of a centralized datacenter. However, with heavy reliance on technology today, just the recovery of data would not be enough for business continuity. The business would not be able to survive without running the technologies as they are used 7 days a week in industries and any disruption would cause the plant machinery to halt and the operations of the company would be affected severely. Thus, there is a need for business continuity planning that not just recovers the data but also ensures that the business operations are managed even in the case of the disaster.

• Equipment failures which is usually managed by avoiding or minimizing damage using predictive maintenance of the systems
• Disruption of power supply or communication systems can be taken care of any having alternate modes of power supply and communications such as inverter systems and alternate communication systems
• Failure of applications or database servers that can be taken care of by having disaster recovery systems along with the redundant servers that allow taking over of the business operations by alternate servers in case of damage to existing systems
• Entry of malicious software such as worms, viruses, Trojan that can lead to data breaches, hacking and other issues that could be prevented or managed using software applications like anti-malware, anti-spam, anti-virus, intrusion detection, and more.
• Social unrest caused by political disturbances, war like scenarios or terrorist attacks can also result into disasters and the result of which can be an operational or business damage. In such cases, insurance covers and physical security provisions can be used for business continuity
• Human errors or human induced problems like strike or sabotage can be recovered through the use of appropriate access control systems, policy structures, and other provisions that can help minimize the damage and keep the systems working as normal
• In case of natural disasters such as cyclone, earthquake, fire, or flooding, disaster recovery systems can be set up at alternate locations such that in case of the physical damage to the mains, the recovery infrastructure can be used to continue the work in the plant (PMI Standards Committee., 2015)

• Creation of a cold site where empty facility is installed as offsite location such that in case of the disaster, the cold site can be made active and used for taking over the business operations.
• A backup site can be created to save the data with similar configuration of machines such that in case of data lost, the backup site serves the need for recovery
• A hot site containing the essential software, network and hardware can be installed just like the production site which can be used as primary site in case of a disaster at the primary site.
• Remote journaling which involves regular backup of the active transaction data would also minimize the loss of data and help in reducing the time for recovery.
• A backup centre can be developed within own facility or outside depending on the availability of space, ability to maintain the redundant equipments in the plant relationships with vendors who would be providing replacements, adequacy of the funds, and availability of the skilled people work the work (Cross, 2013).

Biogas Production Site Preparation

Project Initiation: In this stage, the objective and the scope of the plan would be defined and a steering committee would be established that would come up with the business continuity policies to follow.

Business Analysis: At this stage, a risk analysis and the business impact analysis would be conducted with consideration of the alternative strategies to be used for the business continuity. The alternatives can be selected on the basis of the cost benefit analysis which is done considering which a budget would be allotted for the execution of the plan (Frost, 2013).

Design and development: In this stage of business continuity management, a business recovery team is set up and tasks for recovery would be assigned to the team members. This stage also involves identification of the recovery plan structure, its major components, backup and recovery strategies, execution plan, escalation and notification criteria, and the administrative policy for the organization.

Implementation: At this stage, emergency response procedures are developed which includes preparing of the contracts, purchase of recovery resources, and communication of the roles and responsibilities to the recovery team members.

Testing: In this phase, an action plan is prepared and the training is provided to all the personnel who would be involved in the business continuity plan execution. For this, a testing of the developed systems would be done from which lessons would be gained and used for the training on how to manage situations of disaster for recovery.

Maintenance: The business continuity plan is continuously reviewed and updated based on the running conditions such that changes are made to bring improvements. The updated plan can then be distributed to the members of the recovery team. Tests are designed to see if the system has the network recovery capability. During the testing phase, the recovery procedures and checklists are also tested to discover the weaknesses of the plan such that measures can be taken to update the same for improvement (Kendrick, 2010)

Business continuity strategy is determined after business analysis of the organization, industry analysis that includes exploration of the public interests and regulatory requirements. Business continuity plan is managed by the continuity coordinator who maintains the related documents and distributes the same to teams for periodic review and updating. The owner receives updated documents from the project team members and approves the changes to authorize them. The coordinator must ensure that the system is regularly updated as needed by the organization (SANS, 2002)

Business Continuity Plan

This project would use Microsoft as the project management tool. The tool provides following features that can be used by the company for managing the software development and implementation project:

• Features that can be used with traditional processes of project management such as calendar for tracking, gate review process management, interactive Gantt chart development, project scheduling and support for multiple project management from the same interface.
• It also provides some advanced Agile project management features such as burndown charts
• Emails of the project managers and the project team members can be integrated with Microsoft Project so that they can get notification of changes or any progress on the project
• Budget and expenses can be recorded and monitored through the use of features like creation of budgets, forecasts, hourly rate calculations, track burn rate, project hours tracking, and traffic hours tracking.
• Project team members can collaborate through a number of features like group creation, document management, instant messaging, social collaboration and web conferencing(Graphiq Inc., 2017).
• It can be used for creation of the project WBS using its scheduling features

There are certain assumptions of this project and these include:

• The company has the sufficient staff with sufficient knowledge and skills to manage the tasks required for the development and integration
• A development consultant that is hired for the development of the optimizer software has the experience and skulls required for effective development.
• The company has sufficient funds needed for this development project including the contingency amount.
• The company has sufficient time for the development of the optimizer system (Zhou & Shao, 2012)

Purpose: The purpose of a test plan is to ensure that all the testing requirements and procedures are properly identified and document such the decision maker would understand the testing requirement of the new system to be developed.

Items to be tested: The software that would be developed would be tested for the working and delivery of the functional and non-functional requirements of the project.

Testing approaches:  Each module of the developed software would be tested and first in the test environment such that any bugs are identified and rectified and only after that the module would be implemented in the actual production system in the biogas plant.

Testing criteria: The criteria for testing would be defined for each type of test considering the deliverables needed and the expectations of the stakeholders.

Test deliverables: Deliverables of testing would be the test results report, list of identified bugs, and recommendations for the changes in coding or other steps for rectification of errors or elimination of bugs.

Test environment: A test environment simulating the production environment of the plan would be created in which the testing would be done because actual implementation in the real production environment.

Tests: There would be multiple tests that would be done for the system for ensuring it’s functional and non0functional requirements are met. These include conformance testing, functional Testing, load testing, performance testing, stress testing, system testing, unit testing, and User Acceptance testing (Mangal, Vandana, Karmarkar, & Uday., 2012)

Coding and testing of the product that would be developed would involve testing of then functionalities and the system workflows to understand if they are working fine. This would include technology support, verification of functionalities, validation of processes, and product integration. The codes for the development of the Optimizer software would be written first and testing for the partial system in the testing mode without actual implementation of the whole system.  The testing would involve review of the functional units, integration testing, defect identification and correction. Once the improvements are made, the tests are conducted again to ensure everything is working fine post which the software would be implemented in the whole system and final system test would be conducted to check if the software is able to meet all the functional and non-functional requirements that were defined in the development plan (Legunsen, et al., 2010).

Microsoft as a Project Management Tool

In testing stage, there are repeated coding and iterations through multiple tests for which specific arrangements have to be made involving people who would be assigned specific tasks for testing and coding. The output of each iteration involving testing and coding is recorded and the state of project is understood so that decisions can be taken on requirement for improvement (Vukovi}, 2004).

Reasons why this tool has been chosen for management of the software development project are:

• Ability to learn and start the development project fast
• Availability of the templates for project management, scheduling and other processes in the software
• Ability to use the software on multiple devices to streamline and integrate processes.
• Availability of guides and tutorials with easy interfaces and outputs need less time for training of the employees who would be working on the project
• It provides dashboards that can be used for getting a comprehensive view of all the activities
• Timelines of the project can be customized and can be easily shared with the project stakeholders whenever needed
• Custom reports such as burnout charts and financial performance reports can be generated based on the requirements of the biogas project
• This tool allows customization of tables and views which makes project tracking straight forward(Commella, 2014)

There are certain disadvantages and risks of using Microsoft Project as the project management tool such as:

• The tool provides burndown charts for Agile project management but does not include management of the backlogs of the projects managed
• The tool is somewhat complicated and needs good learning to be able to make the best use of all its features(McGevna, 2010)

The organization already has some processes and resources that need to be used in order to proceed with the project. An effective utilization of the same would be needed to be able to succeed in the development project. The company is already carrying out some improvement activities for that such as employment of more experienced people in the company who are equipped to identify and resolve manufacturing challenges. With an aim of the development of the software solution for optimization, the people working in he company are being trained to understand how processes and equipments and identify places where the processes need optimization. This information would then be used for the development of the optimizer software for the biogas manufacturing plant (Marshall & Freedman, 2012).

The software requirement development goes beyond the stage of product conceptualization and product development. The purpose of requirement development is to understand the needs of the users, validation of requirements, tracing and control of the same. The requirement analysis is usually done using analysis of the data that is gathered through stakeholder and user surveys.

• Plant optimization
• Browser based interface
• Close loop integration
• Automated testing(Mandl-Striegnitz & Lichter, 2000)

• Self -adaptation of the software system as the plant conditions change
• Comprehensive support for the capabilities of the plant
• Easy upgrading of the plant optimizer system in future through effective migration
• Low cost of maintenance through reduction in runtime and maintenance fee
• Reduced costs of operations
• Compliance to environmental processes(Emerson , 2005)

The software development project would involve considerations of two functional areas including project management and system. The functional area of project development would involve project management, project development, technology support, document management, daily management and employee management.  The system function of the project would include user management, document management and role management.

The first stage of the project management would be the product concept stage in which the concept for the development of the software would be defined. A product development proposal can then be made containing details of the software features and the roles of the project staff in establishment that are approved by the management (McGrath, 2012′).

Once approved, the project would go to the planning stage in which an action program including research and development and the project management would be developed. At this stage, project costs are estimated and the project plan is accordingly approved.

After the plan is approved, the system would go to the design and development stage. System design includes system structure, database, user interface, and coding to meet the requirements of the software project (Chadli, Toval, Idri, & Nicolás, 2016).

There are several key performance indicators that can help assess the performance of the project. It is not possible to use all the KPIs on a single project and thus, most relevant and important KPIs have to be identified for which KPI matrix can be used. In the matrix KPIs can be identifies as those primary to the current project, those that company aspire to achieve, KPIs that need to take caution about to ensure that project is in line and not making losses while other KPIs of low level of importance can simply be forgotten.  For the current case, the KPI matrix below identifies KPIs n each of these categories:

Importance	Aspire list of KPIs Return on Investment Cost performance index Productivity Resource Utilization Customer Satisfaction Strategic alignment Cost savings	Primary KPIs Planned Value Actual project cost Process management costs Scheduled performance index Percentage of tasks completed
Forget Economy of reserve funds	Caution Overdue project tasks Share of overhead expenses Scheduled variance Project Deviations Missed milestones (Tsipes, 2004)
	Availability

As the optimizer software would be expensive if new software has to be developed as would need consideration of all the factory settings and understanding of how systems work which can also be time consuming. A better approach would thus be acquisition of existing optimizer software available in the market with the customization options and customize the same with modification sin setting or recoding in case of the requirement based on the requirements of the organization. An acquisition plan would help in ensuring that the acquisition is done correctly and in the right way which is presented here:

Objectives of acquisition: Objectives of acquisition of the existing software and its customization is to have low cost development and an availability of the expertise to ensure that the solution would work find when implemented in the systems of thee organization.

Performance requirement: The new software must be able to improve the performance of the biogas production systems through optimization of processes using the developed software

Cost considerations: The Company has limited budget under which all the activities needed for acquisition must be completed (Moon, 2013).

Budgeting and Funding: The budget allotted for this project is $20,000,000 which includes funds for the acquisition of the license of the software, its customization, integration with factory systems, data migration and training of employees on the use of the new Optimizer.

Alternatives: Alternatives to this approach of acquisition include no action and the new software product development internally (Park, Spink, & Howarth, 2013).

Milestones: The software would be acquired and customized for the need of the organization within the eight months after the approval of the plan and the milestones that would be achieved during these 8 months are presented in the table below assuming the start of the project by 1st Dec 2017

Deliverables	Milestones
Request for Proposal from the vendors of optimization software and consultants for their services	5th Dec 2017
Selection of the consultant for guidance on software development	15th Dec 2017
Selection of vendor for the acquisition of license	20th Dec 2017
Acquisition of the license of the optimization software	31st Dec 2017
Identification of the need for customization based on the analysis of the company system done by the consultant	31st Jan 2018
Development of the custom code for the modification of the software for the company needs – 1st iteration	26th Feb 2018
Testing of features developed	30th mar 2018
Modification of the custom code for the elimination of bugs for the company needs – 2nd iteration	15th Apr 2018
Testing of features developed	20th Apr 2018
Modification of the custom code for the elimination of bugs for the company needs – 2nd iteration	5th Apr 2018
Testing of features developed	15th May 2018
Final development	20th June 2018
System testing	5th July 2018
Installation in the company	10th July 2018
Integration with existing systems	20th July 2018
User acceptance testing	30th July 2018
User training	20th Aug 2018
Project Sign off	31st Aug 2018

Business Considerations: Testing must be completed using available resources without exceeding the budget allotted for testing of the system

Technical considerations: The bugs that are revealed in the testing procedures must be corrected before next iteration and testing is done

Logistics Considerations: The main users of the system must be taken input from while planning the tests to ensure that all their requirement are well tested (Haris, 2013)

Alternatives to the software acquisition and customization would be no development or change in the organization and the development of new software. The chosen acquisition method has advantages and disadvantages over each of these methods as illustrated in the table below:

	No Action	Development from scratch	Customization of existing software
Advantages	No cost implications	Full control over features and the development process Ability to develop a highly customized software that takes care of the needs of the industry and the company	Cost effective as the cost of customization of an existing software would be lesser than a new development. Less time of development as only customization would have to be done Assurance of the software as it would already have been tested and implemented in another factory setting.
Disadvantages	No improvements in the current system and the challenges faced by the organization currently would remain unresolved	High cost of development High risk in case the software developed is unable to produce the desired output	Significance cost of development in case the existing software needs a significant modification to meet the needs of the current organization

Conclusion

This report was a project plan created for the development of new Optimization software for the biogas production plant. The plan included details of functional and non functional requirements of the development, design specification, test plan and implementation plan. The project plan was prepared assuming that the company would take a license of existing optimizer software and would modify it based on the needs of the organization. Microsoft project tool would be used for the management of the software implementation project and the project would take 8 months from acquisition of licenses to the final development, testing and training of employees.

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