Improving Logistic Firm Operations With GPS And PDAs – XYZ Company

Measurable Objectives

XYZ company is a 20 years old logistic firm dealing in providing delivery services of all size packets throughout Queensland. The head office of the firm is established in Sydney. XYZ aims at improving its operations and planning to scale it market reach in other cities like NSW. The key obstacle in this expansion is dealing with the scattered distribution system of the company. It aims at minimizing gap with the drivers via installation of GPS system and PDAs  in every truck i.e. for every driver.

Measurable objectives

• To increase the company’s market share by 7.5% in Sydney
• To increase efficiency of company operations to reach the peak performance for the organization
• To develop a highly motivated and cohesive workforce
• To add 8 fleets to the line of trucks to be able to server more customers in the time
• To develop a new strategy for distribution which gives company more efficiency

Problem

The company does not have proper medium of communication with its drivers. Drivers get the delivery plan from their reporting managers. The delivery schedule and roadmap are prepared manually because of scattered distribution system and manual operations. Due to lack of communication medium with drivers, they usually take long distances and sometimes covered roads are wrong. Drivers have to manage their delivery schedule over calls with their respective managers at head office who keeps updating the status of deliveries as confirmed by the driver (Bruce & Langdon, 2009).  

Opportunity statement

The company needs implementation of a technology which removes manual dependency on the reporting managers and facilitate real-time updating of delivery status. Along with this, if a real-time system can be installed which helps driver to find out shortest route possible then the efficiency of the operations can be highly improved. The proposed solution includes installation of GPS system in all trucks and installation of PDAs for all drivers. GPS system will help in tracking and monitoring of vehicles and automatically updating the delivery status of the parcel at the head office. Installation of PDA will allow drivers to collaborate GPS to get real-time data from head office and update vehicle’s location accordingly. The company will be able to update their clients about the current status of their parcel (Baguley, 2008).

Critical assumptions and constraints

The proposed change has following key assumptions and constraints:

• All hired laborer are on permanent pay scale and no contract labor shall be introduced in the project.
• All equipment i.e. PDA installer and GPS installer shall be supplied by ABC company only and no additional equipment will be required.
• All the personnel should be trained and have required competencies to conduct assigned tasks of the project.
• Project working hours are limited to Monday to Friday from 0900 Hours to 1800 hours.
• The proposed solution shall not cover the marketing of products of the company.
• After User Acceptance Testing, any kind of upgrade shall not be considered.
• Recommendations

The management of XYZ company has undertaken the analysis of integrating the current system of the company by removing manual operations and establishing real-time connectivity of the head office with the drivers (trucks). The total budget of the proposed solution is minimal when compared with the return on investment to the business in current situation. The company has partial computerized system and partial manual operation.

On the basis of objectives mentioned above and current losses, the company recommends the PDA and GPS installation along with integration of all manual and computerized operations as an alternative solution. This solution shall reduce the initial costs and provide early Return on Investments. The proposed solution can proceed under allocated budget rather than using a capital budget

 Project requirements

The key project requirements of proposed solution are as follows:

• All the backup of current computerized systems should be done before the execution phase of the project.
• The backup data should be compatible with the new integrated system and should not take more than 2 hours.
• Data of current clients should not be affected because of on-going integration process in the company. Separate human resources should be allotted for managing client’s queries(EU, 2005).
• Fortnightly status reports should be prepared by the Project manager and submitted to higher management on bi-weekly basis. The report should contain minimum of these items – summary of work completed till date, actual cost and allocated cost for that particular period, issues or conflicts raised among the project team members and next milestone to be achieved(Heerkens, 2015).
• Budget estimate and financial analysis

The proposed solution would include following costs:

Resource	Hours employed	Hourly cost	Total cost
Project manager	10	$120 per hour	$1000
PDA/GPS trainer	5	$100 per hour	$500
PDA/ GPS installation	5	200/truck	$1000
Change strategy implementation			$2,000 (SAEO, 2015)
			$4,500

The ROI from this proposed change for the company shall be $20,000 which shall be achieved in the form of profiles through increase in business operation efficiencies.

The cost of implanting this project would be $4,500 as calculated in the table above. Thus, it can be said that the project would be profitable for the company in the long run and thus, the company would be able to achieve its objectives of lowing costs and brining positive change in the organization. 

Schedule estimate

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
PDA/GPS Installation	29 days	Thu 04/01/18	Tue 13/02/18
Project initiation	5 days	Thu 04/01/18	Wed 10/01/18
Identify gaps	5 days	Thu 04/01/18	Wed 10/01/18
Identify computerized and manual operations	4 days	Thu 04/01/18	Tue 09/01/18
Get approval from Management	0 days	Wed 10/01/18	Wed 10/01/18
Project planning	10 days	Thu 11/01/18	Wed 24/01/18
Identify scope	4 days	Thu 11/01/18	Tue 16/01/18
Create project schedule	3 days	Fri 19/01/18	Tue 23/01/18
Create budget	5 days	Thu 11/01/18	Wed 17/01/18
Create Integration process	3 days	Mon 22/01/18	Wed 24/01/18
Get approval for plan	0 days	Wed 24/01/18	Wed 24/01/18
Requirement analysis	21 days	Thu 04/01/18	Thu 01/02/18
Study current system	3 days	Thu 25/01/18	Mon 29/01/18
Interview current users	3 days	Thu 25/01/18	Mon 29/01/18
Identify and finalize requirement	3 days	Thu 25/01/18	Mon 29/01/18
Cost benefit analysis	2 days	Tue 30/01/18	Wed 31/01/18
Create proposal	1 day	Thu 01/02/18	Thu 01/02/18
Get approval for proposal	0 days	Thu 04/01/18	Thu 04/01/18
Training	5 days	Thu 04/01/18	Wed 10/01/18
Create training plan	2 days	Thu 04/01/18	Fri 05/01/18
Finalize schedule for all drivers	3 days	Mon 08/01/18	Wed 10/01/18
Get approval	0 days	Wed 10/01/18	Wed 10/01/18
Vendor selection for PDA	11 days	Thu 11/01/18	Thu 25/01/18
Open tender	3 days	Thu 11/01/18	Mon 15/01/18
Create selection criteria	2 days	Tue 16/01/18	Wed 17/01/18
Select vendor	1 day	Thu 18/01/18	Thu 18/01/18
PDA installation	5 days	Fri 19/01/18	Thu 25/01/18
System implementation at head office	2 days	Fri 26/01/18	Mon 29/01/18
Install software	2 days	Fri 26/01/18	Mon 29/01/18
Documentation	1 day	Fri 26/01/18	Fri 26/01/18
Get approval for documentation	0 days	Mon 29/01/18	Mon 29/01/18
Testing	10 days	Tue 30/01/18	Mon 12/02/18
Head office system testing	3 days	Tue 30/01/18	Thu 01/02/18
PDA and GPS testing	3 days	Fri 02/02/18	Tue 06/02/18
Inform vendor about bugs	1 day	Wed 07/02/18	Wed 07/02/18
Resolve bugs	3 days	Thu 08/02/18	Mon 12/02/18
Get approval for tested system	0 days	Mon 12/02/18	Mon 12/02/18
Go-Live	1 day	Tue 13/02/18	Tue 13/02/18
(Dell’Isola, 2015)

Potential risks

Risk	Probability	Impact	Contingency plan
Cost overruns	High	moderate	If expenses increase beyond the allotted budget, contingency funds may be used and even if they are not sufficient, additional approval can be taken from the Sponsor to release more funds
Delays in milestone achievements	Medium	High	The project management would avoid such delays by using monitoring tools such as Gantt chart and Minutes of Meetings to keep progress on track and ensure completion of deliverables as per planned schedule (Ponnappa, 2014).
Deliverables quality not as per expectations	Low	High	All stakeholders must be involved in the requirement gathering to ensure what quality parameters are needed project manager must then ensure to keep meeting them
Scope creep	Medium	High	Scope changes can be made only if that would not affect the project any severely in terms of timeline and budget. Changes that are needed can be taken additional approval for and scope changes can be made.
Stakeholder Conflicts	Medium	Moderate	Stakeholder meeting must be called and a discussion should be done on how to resolve conflict and arrive at a solution that is acceptable to all conflicting parties (HEALEY, 2017).
Bugs in application developed	Medium	Medium	Once an application is developed, a thorough testing must be performed for identification of bugs and any bugs identified must be eliminated in the next iteration to ensure production of a bug free software (OECD, 2014)
Lack of understanding of requirements	Low	High	Involve stakeholders in the requirement gathering and ensure after making requirements document that they are verified by stakeholders before finalizing them  (GALWAY, 2004)
Scheduling risk	Low	Moderate	Scheduled must be tracked and the project progress monitored to keep a control over schedule and in case of delays expected, immediate actions must be taken by the project manager to avoid delays (EC, 2005)
Technical Risks	Low	High	Compatibility of the software and hardware must be ensured so that technical errors do not occur and in the case of discrepancies found, action must be taken to upgrade the hardware if needed
Lack of human resource	Medium	High	Need for resources must be estimated accurately and all resources should be made available before start and an additional budget to be kept for immediately hiring in the case of emergencies so that resources can be easily replace in case of unavailability of one and the work is not affected (Deeprose, 2002)

Conclusion

The aim of this document was to explore the case of ABC which is a logistics company planning to expand its business by adding new fleets and enhancing its customer service by building a stronger team. The company plans to use technology for this by installing an integrated system involving PDAs for employees and GPS systems for new fleets. The project is given a budget of $4,500 and the expected rate of returns would be $20,000. The project is also likely to face some major risks that can be mitigated with the given plan such as scope variation, scheduling risks, lack of resource availability, unexpected quality of deliverables.

10.  References

Baguley, P. (2008). Project management. London: Hodder Education.

Bruce, A., & Langdon, K. (2009). Project management . London: Dorling Kindersley.

Deeprose, D. (2002). Project management . Oxford, U.K.: Capstone Pub.

Dell’Isola, M. D. (2015). Strategies For Budgeting, Estimating and Managing Projects. Faithful Gould.

1. (2005). Understanding and Monitoring the Cost-Determining Factors of Infrastructure Projects. EC.
2. (2005). Human Resources management strategies to support organizational changes. EU.

GALWAY, L. (2004). Quantitative Risk Analysis for Project Management. Rand Corporation.

HEALEY, P. (2017). PROJECT MANAGEMENT. USA: ROUTLEDGE.

Heerkens, G. (2015). Project management . USA: Mcgraw-Hill Education.

OECD. (2014). Risk Management and Corporate Governance. OECD Publishing.

Ponnappa, G. (2014). Project Stakeholder Management. Project Management Journal, 1-3.

SAEO. (2015). Cost Estimating Manual for Projects . SAEO.