Grand Wines Project Plan: Inventory Management, Order Processing, And Sales Management System Development

Scope Management Plan

Discuss about the Grand Wines Project Plan.

This report involves development of a project plan for Grand Wines Ltd. The project involves purchase of hand held devices for the sales team of the company, development of an information system and its integration with the hand-held devices. The report presents a scope management plan, WBS, and risk register.

Grand Wines Ltd is a wine maker and seller organization from NSW and it has over 400 independent Liquor and wine stores across nation. The company is operated by a large workforce and 20 of them are into sales that help company expand its operations and make business in NSW.

The current sales process of the organization involves manual order taking by these sales representatives from customers and then mailing or faxing of these orders to the sales department that is located in Sydney. A sales database is maintained at the department which is linked with the inventory system supporting shipment of the ordered goods. The sales people enter the orders in the sales database to start the process of order and delivery management.

However, the organization is currently facing certain operational challenges such as delays in order entries, unavailability of stock information on time, and loss of orders due to human errors. Because of these problems, customers and sales staff are not satisfied. However, the competing organization in the space have improved systems of inventory and ordering and are able to make faster deliveries and maintain accuracy of orders to keep customers and employees satisfied (Bright Hub Media, 2015). 

Aim of this project is to develop an information system for inventory management, order processing, and sales management for which hand held devices would be provided to the sales team which would be linked with the information system of database, inventories and order management (Antón, 2003). Key requirements of this system include:

• Ability to connect to the front end systems including hand held devices that would be carried by sales representations so that they can enter the orders received in the system instantly.
• The information system would manage orders, inventories, and delivery management.
• The system should get updated automatically such that the inventory information can be received instantly by the sales people anytime.
• Upon confirmation from clients on orders, sales representatives should be able to enter the order information instantly and update the same in the systems(PDA, 2007).

The items that are in scope of this project include:

• Acquisition of the hand held devices
• Installation of the order management module on handheld devices.
• Development and installation of inventory management and order management system
• Migration of the legacy data into the new database.
• Testing of new information system

• Process of selecting suppliers for hand held devices.

The acceptance criteria of the Information system development project include:

• Validation of ordering, inventory management and deliver processes for embedding into new system
• The processes should not take more than few seconds to respond to the user queries
• The interface should be understood by all the potential users of the applications including sales people, warehouse and order processing departments
• The required system must be delivered within 6 months
• Project activities should not take more than AUD 60000.00 which is the total allotted budget
• All deliverables should be met, recorded and reported at the end of the project as per the project plan(BIS, 2010).

Key deliverables of the system development project include:

• Project plan for the development, testing and implementation of the system
• Work break down structure highlighting the planned activities of the project
• Assigning responsibilities to people involved in the project to complete the project activities.
• Progress monitoring and reporting of the project activities to ensure deliverables are met
• Development of inventory and order management software
• Procurement of hand held devices for sales people
• Development of software for handheld devices and integration of the same with other information systems(The State of Maryland , 2015).

There are certain constraints of this project that include:

• The Budget – There are only AUD 60000.00 allotted as budget and thus, any activity included in the project cannot exceed this budget. If there is any need for additional funds then the same have to be requested and approved by the sponsor.
• The Time – Project has to be completed within 6 months after the start and thus, the project manager must keep checking the progress and comparing the same with plan to ensure that it is completed within time.
• The Resource Constraints – The organizations has limited resources that are planned at initial stages. There could not be any new resources hired at any stage of development unless a resource left or is required to be replaced(Caltrans, 2007).

There are some assumptions on this project such as:

• The allotted budge is sufficient for completing all the activities as required by the project
• With proper monitoring and control established, the project activities can be completed within the scheduled time(Project Management Institute , 2000).

Not all changes required on the project require special approvals from project sponsors. Such changes may be managed by the project manager. These may include change requests related to budget enhancement, schedule extension or new equipment purchases (IFRC, 2011).

WBS	Task Name
1	Hand held devices and Grand Wines Information system development
1.1	Project initiation
1.1.1	User Requirements
1.1.1.1	Sales representatives
1.1.1.2	Administrative users
1.1.3	Requirement documentation
1.1.4	Sponsor sign-offs
1.2	Project planning
1.2.1	Scope management Plan
1.2.2	Resource Management Plan
1.2.3	Project plan approval
1.3	Project Execution
1.3.1	Procurement (Metafuse, Inc.;Core Performance Concepts, 2015)
1.3.1.1	Purchase Hand Held devices
1.3.1.2	Software licenses
1.3.1.3	Order Management
1.3.1.4	Sales Management
1.3.1.5	Inventory Management
1.3.2	Development
1.3.2.1	Customization of software
1.3.2.2	Integration with hand held devices
1.3.3	Testing
1.3.3.1	Functional testing
1.3.3.2	User Acceptance testing
1.3.4	Training
1.3.4.1	Sales representatives training
1.3.4.2	Administrator training
1.4	Project closure
1.4.1	Disperse or release human resources
1.4.2	Project closure documentation
1.4.3	Project Closure sign off (U.S. Department of the Interior , 2012)

Budget Time-phased budget

Task	Jan-16	Feb-16	Mar-16	Apr-16	May-16
Project initiation
User Requirements
Sales representatives	1440
Administrative users	1680
Requirement documentation	1920
Sponsor sign-offs	1200
Project planning
Scope management Plan	840
Resource Management Plan	840
Resource Management and Finalization	840
Risk Management – Assessment and Estimation	1920
Project Plan Creation	1920
Submission of project plan	1920
Approve project plan	640
Project Execution
Procurement
Purchase Hand Held devices	840
Software licenses	840
Order Management	920	1000
Sales Management		1920
Inventory Management		1920
Development
Customization of software		5000	3000
Integration with hand held devices			4000
Testing
Unit testing			1200
Functional testing			1200
User Acceptance testing			1600
Trace bugs				800
Prepare bug report				800
Send bug report to developer				1280
Resolve bugs				4000
Final testing				1920
Training
Sales representatives training				40	800
Administrator training				40	800
Project closure
Disperse or release human resources					1920
Project closure documentation					2760
Project Closure sign off					1920
Cost/month	17760	9840	11000	8880	8200
Cumulative cost	17760	27600	38600	47480	55680

Total project cost would be $60000 without any addition for contingency. However, 20% would be added to this for contingency. If for any reasons, project costs exceed the budget; this contingency fund would be utilized (Metafuse, Inc.;Core Performance Concepts, 2015). Each resource is required to give minimum 8hrs/day. However, in any case, a resource is not available then it has to be replaced some other resource. Secondly, if cost of software or hardware increase due to change in economic terms then additional amount needs to be satisfied by the available contingency. These issues require intervention from high management and opinions of industry experts.

No.	Rank	Risk	Category	Description	Root Causes	Potential Responses	Risk owner	Probability	Impact	Status
R01	1	Budget overshooting	Costs risk	Cost overrun	If the prices of the hand held devices or licenses increase when the actual procurement is required from the plan, it would cause the price to rise. While working on the project, delays and scope changes may require additional funds to be allotted for human resource.	Weekly reports: Contingency budget may be utilized for managing additional requirements. Project cost must be planned considering the future fluctuations that may occur	Project Manager	Low	High	Medium
R02	2	Schedule overrun	Time risk	Delays in meeting milestone deadlines	Time not utilized efficiently for completing the WBS activities	Weekly reports: The project should be monitored and the progress must be measured against the project plan to identify any possibilities of deviations such that control measures can be taken to prevent the variations	Project Manager	High	Medium	Extreme
R03	3	Deliverables do not meet user requirements	Scope Risks	Scope changes	Inability to meet deadlines as per milestones	-Meet all project stakeholders during requirement gathering and ensure that all their requirement are included in the project requirement document which must also be validated and approved by key stakeholders to ensure that no requirement is missed.	Project Manager	Low	High	Medium
R04	4	Project completed before time	Time risk	Completion before Go-Live date	Budget and resources are utilized more effectively than expected	Release human resources	Project Manager	Low	High	Medium (Masons Thelen Reid LLP, 2006)

Conclusions

The project proposed involved development of an information system for Grand wines and purchase of hand held devices that were to be integrated with these information systems. The project plan was prepared using the principles of project management. The plan included project WBS, schedule, budget, and risk response plan.

References

Changefirst Limited, 2009. Change and project management , s.l.: ChangeFirst.

PM College, 2009. Resource Management and the PMO, Philadelphia, Pa., USA: Project Management Solutions, Inc..

Antón, A. I., 2003. Successful Software Projects Need Requirements Planning, s.l.: North Carolina State University.

BIS, 2010. How to organise, plan and control Projects, s.l.: BIS.

Bright Hub Media, 2015. Constructing Powerful Scope Statements. [Online]
Available at: https://www.brighthubpm.com/project-planning/57950-example-and-evaluation-of-project-scope-statements/

Caltrans, 2007. Project Communication Handbook. s.l.:Caltrans.

FME, 2014. Project Human Resources Management, s.l.: FME.

IFRC, 2011. Project/programme monitoring and evaluation (M&E) guide, Geneva: International Federation of Red Cross .

Masons Thelen Reid LLP, 2006. Managing Payment Risks on International Construction Projects, s.l.: Overseas Construction Association of Japan, Inc..

Metafuse, Inc.;Core Performance Concepts, 2015. Project Scheduling. [Online]
Available at: https://www.projectinsight.net/project-management-basics/project-management-schedule

PDA, 2007. Project Management: Project Justification and Planning. 1st: Scottish Qualifications Authority .

Project Management Institute , 2000. A guide to the Project Management Book of Knowledge , s.l.: Project Management Institute .

The State of Maryland , 2015. PROJECT SCOPE STATEMENT, s.l.: s.n.

U.S. Department of the Interior , 2012. Project Management Framework, s.l.: U.S. Department of the Interior .

WSDOT, 2015. Cost Estimating Manual for Projects , s.l.: Washington State Department of Transportation.