Elements That Define Project Deliverables

Management Concept

Discuss About The Elements That Define Project Deliverables?

Formulae SAE is a Competition which involves automobile design students and is aimed at identifying important automotive engineering technologies and approaches which can be used to enhance their learning and boost innovation. The competition was stated in 1980 after motor racing was found to be an unsustainable industry. This meant that racing teams had to constantly work to monitor and manage their teams to secure external funding so as to ensure they remain in operation (Brown, 2011).  This has resulted in motorsports teams and enthusiasts turning their attention towards advertisement from sponsors as their primary source of income. With funding fully dependant on sponsorships from external sources, teams must focus on managing their funds carefully so as to ensure they harness the maximum output from every dollar invested on the vehicle. Motor Racing is a sport which involves high risk and danger and one of the main reasons it attracts spectators. Every year, motorsports events experience serious injuries and deaths due to the high risk involved (Majerus, 2007, p. 27). The report shall focus on developing an effective management plane for the development of a Formulae SAE team.  The report shall analyses important approaches which teams and team members must follow and manage so as to ensure their racing vehicles design is completed within the stipulated time frame and budget.

The management concept related to this proposal is the design and utilization of a safer Formulae SAE vehicle which delivers a high performance vehicle designs. The newly developed components can be later offered for sale to well establish vehicle manufactures. This acts as a practical activity to encourage automobile engineering students to boost their ingenuity and innovation related to problems automobiles manufactures may be currently experiencing. The new designs may be developed and help spot students focus towards developing designs after which they can move their attention towards searching for funding to help develop their designs. Once completed the designs shall be practically put to the test on the race track where the designs shall be analysed and details statistics collected to determine the designs success and how much improvement is has made to current designs in the market. The exercise shall introduce a new, better and safer design which shall improve performance of Formulae SAE vehicle and which can later be used by commercial automobile manufactures to improve design and performance (Livesey1, 2012).

Review of the More Technical Aspects of the Project

A Formulae SAE sports vehicle will require to be designed from scratch and teams will need to be devised department wise to focuses on different elements of the vehicles. Each will require identifying a specific area of expertise and improvement of a particular component being used or introduced to the vehicle (Puskar, 2013).  The project is aimed at introducing new Formulae SAE components which will help improve safety and performance when tested on Formulae SAE vehicles and data collected which can be used to further improve the designs for commercial use by automobile manufactures. It’s important that the commercial aspect linked to the designs is always maintained since these designs and ideas would act as the engineer’s trump card while presenting their knowledge and capabilities to employers in future. Most automobile companies will review the engineer’s ability and ability to look ahead while designing new components while still focusing on the commercial and financial aspects linked to the project. Developing components which do not offer financial viability is likely not to attract any potential employer’s interest and the designs do not offer any financial gains in for the business.

Formulae SAE teams are aimed at encouraging automobile engineering students to introduce, propose and design new elements and features which can be introduced to the Formulae SAE vehicles and make them perform better, safer and effective.  Formulae SAE has been a preferred choice for automobile engineering students due to it being an adrenaline filled sport which carried high risk but at the same time, it has been classified as an unsustainable industry (Brown1, 2011). This is due to motorsports relaying primarily on sponsorship as the primary source of funding making it important to manage all expenses carefully so as to ensure funding harnesses the highest returned on investment.

Formulae SAE is heavily dependent on sponsorship from automobile companies and businesses in general who advertise the brand name on the vehicle to be viewed by spectators during the race. This makes advertising of the vehicles components and important aspect linked to approaching advertises who will buy the vacant space to display their brand name.  This makes different sections of the vehicle attract different sponsorship rates making it important to classify the different components so as to identify the advertisement value to be expected from each component. Leading race vehicles designs are also likely to attract more media and viewer attention thus attracting more and higher sponsorship in interest which automatically generates more sponsorship and financial support (Irwin, Sutton, & McCarthy, 2008).

Formulae SAE Team Management

The Formulae SAE team funding depends heavily on sponsorship meaning teams needs to make the initial investment towards the project after which they can approach sponsors to buy advertisements space. This makes it important to finalize a design before sponsors can be approached with sponsorship details of different vehicle components and parts of the vehicle can be offered for advertisement in exchange for financial support and assistant to build the vehicle. (Schlachter & Weber, 2005). Each component of the vehicle design must also be patented to help protect the design from being used by other teams and designers who may identify an opportunity to develop a new and more effective design from the team’s ideas. This makes it important that the design is registered to help protect the design throughout the design, development and refining process.

Formulae SAE racing is a risky venture making it important for the team to develop effective designs which minimize the risk of serious accidents breaches in the code of conduct set by the Formulae SAE governing council. This is especially important with high-risk competent such as the battery, engine, exhaust system , Fuel tank and line which could lead to serious fires, accidents, and death if not designed properly. This has made it important for the design to be carefully evaluated before implementation and thoroughly tested under controlled environments to measure the fuel tank projected safety level as opposed to its actual safety level (Henry, Angus, Jenkins, & Aylett, 2007). The design must take all aspects in to consideration to reduce the risk of accidents occurring which can be prevented through proper design evolutions procedures for the Formulae SAE racing vehicles.

With the design completed, successfully tested and data collected for analysis, the team can use this information to approach vehicle companies for fundraising and supply sponsorship (Sargeant & Shang, 2017). There are many businesses and entrepreneurs looking to offer sponsorship towards viable projects but it’s important that all information and data be carefully analysed and a professional presentation prepared. While the prototype would be developed for Formulae SAE motor caring vehicles the proposed components should be viable for use on private cars and commercial vehicles. The design would utilize the fundamental designs and internal materials to help improve current vehicle design and improvement of performance.  With a patented design which has been tested successfully the developer will easily be able to secure funding for further development of the vehicle components and parts under protection of patent laws to avoid design theft and mass production but unauthorised developers. It’s critical to design, test, and patents the design and idea prevent competitions from taking up the idea and mass producing the product.

Sponsorship Management

The Formulae SAE is developed and managed by college students which results in the teams having time constraints related to them managing their daily educational curriculum and development and management of the Formulae SAE team. This is one of the reasons team must be broken in to departments each focusing on a different component of the vehicle design. Each department will be responsible for designing and raising funds for the components and also offering surplus funds to department of the team which may be facing financial budget deficit. Distributing the responsibility’s allows for more participants to reach out for funding and likely to secure more funding as opposed to teams who dedicate the responsibility to a single individuals of group to secure funding (Wilson, 2015). This would free team members to focus on other areas and components which will help speed up design and development. Each group will introduce their focus area to potential sponsors and highlight the benefits which will help boost the ability to collect more information

Designs must also take into consideration the entire team’s budget without placing to must train on the overall budget (Smith, Jaggar, & Love, 2016). To ensure maximum budget efficiency the prototypes, will require to be modified from an existing commercially manufactured components which are easily available for an affordable rate. The components would then be carefully reengineered by adding the new features which are projected to improve performance and efficiency. This would help cut the component development cost thus leaving adequate funds for all components of the vehicle, development and testing process. This amount would also include testing, analysis; reporting and patenting the design to deliver components to be used on the vehicle design. While Formulae SAE has been classified as unsuitable over the long-term perspective, serious automobile engineers use this opportunity to develop new component designs which are safeguarded and can be solved to commercial vehicle manufactures for use on their vehicles designs. This is the main objective associated involving and limiting college students to Formulae SAE automobile design and development as it helps many identify areas they excel in and how they can use that knowledge to build products which can be sold to industries which are registering success.

The objective of redesigning and developing new component would be to improve vehicle safety and performance and the new design can then be offered for sale to well established vehicle manufacturing companies. The designs, experience and contributions will also help develop individual’s contributor’s performance on the project which will help boost their career prospects by demonstrating their capability. The design once completed will also act as an important asset for the team which can be sold to potential automobile companies once completed and tested successfully. This will help enhance automobile user safety and also help the team recover the investments made towards developing the Formulae SAE racing car.

Funding for the Formulae SAE Team

Conclusion

The main goal of young automobile engineers participating in the Formulae SAE competition if to assist them to develop innovative engineering skills which can be improve their focus towards improving current automobile designs which can be used in future vehicles. This important as it allows the young engineers investigate the current designs and identify engineering problems the designs may be facing. This will then instigate each one to developing a new design solution to overcome the problem which has been identified. This is the main element linked to successful engineering where young automobile engineers must remain open towards contributing to improve future designs. Fuel efficacy, safety and pollution are all aspects which young automobile engineers need to focus on to develop designs in future which address the identified problems. With more automobile engineers being graduated from college and university, major automobile brands will hire only he very best engineers who exhibit the best innovating and infinitive ideas and focus towards improving automobile design. This start from a young age and state thus making the Formulae SAE racing car project an important stepping stone every engineer must consider displaying their capabilities at an early age.

References

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Irwin, R. L., Sutton, W. A., & McCarthy, L. M. (2008). Sport Promotion and Sales Management. Human Kinetics.

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Puskar, J. R. (2013). Fuel and Combustion Systems Safety: What you don’t know can kill you! John Wiley & Sons.

Sargeant, A., & Shang, J. (2017). Fundraising Principles and Practice. John Wiley & Sons.

Schlachter, G. A., & Weber, R. D. (2005). College Student’s Guide to Merit and Other No-need Funding. Reference Service Press.

Smith, J., Jaggar, D. M., & Love, P. (2016). Building Cost Planning for the Design Team. Routledge.

Wilson, R. (2015). Mastering Project Time Management, Cost Control, and Quality Management: Proven Methods for Controlling the Three Elements that Define Project Deliverables. FT Press.