Sustaining Competitive Advantage In The Widget Market – A Project Management Plan For Widgets ‘R Us

Challenges Faced by WRU

The WRU (Widgets ’R Us Widgets ’R Us) is a medium sized organization and it specializing in the manufacture and designing of the widgets. It provides the stable widgets for a market. WRU organization has four departments such as engineering, sales, production and accounting. Past three years the WRU organization has the demand for widgets has exploded. The organization was finding itself unable to complete the successfully in the new widgets in the dynamic market and also the organization CEO addresses the many problems like widgets are slow to market and slow to pick up signs form the marketplace. It also has internal communication problems and department heads are constantly blaming other department heads for the organization issues. So, the organization Board members and CEO called the consultant to analyze the WRU operations. It is used to improve the organization business process and also provide the project management plan to sustain the competitive advantage in the widget market.

The WRU organization needs to identify their highest value opportunities and addresses their most critical challenges. It transforms their business operations to high level business operations (Tremel, 2018). It ensures the sustainable competitive advantages to build the more capable organization and securing the lasting results. It needs to improve the performance efforts tends to focus on the operational aspects of manufacturing of the widget. But, WRU has organization issues like proliferating roles and responsibilities, matrix structure with various interfaces and organizational structure that is no longer aligned with business strategy. It has major obstacle to competitive advantage, flexibility, speed, cost, effectiveness and quality. The organization must create the design decision at both the plant and corporate levels.

The WRU organization has various problems and these are resolved by consultant to analyze the business operations. So, the consultants are needs to improve the organization business process and it provides the sub stain to the competitive advantages in the widget market. The alternative solutions for this project are to (Gina Abudi, 2018),

Reduces the product manufacturing defect

Implementing the organization efficiency to promoting the business practices

Continuously improving the operations

Simplify the manufacturing task to reduce the waste and increased the efficiency.

Finding appropriate method to simplifying the manufacturing task for an organization. Because, it is important step in organization improvement.

It includes the key considerations to centralize the business control and integrate the related functions and their roles and responsibilities. Each organization generally manages the tradeoff that can affect the cost, product quality, service levels and cycle times. So, organization carefully handles the organization tradeoffs.

Recommendations for Improvement

Main scope of this project is to create the project management plan for WRU organization. Because this organization has various problems and these are resolved to called the consultant to provide the effective business operations for a WRU organization. The WRU organization is a widget design and manufacturing organization (Projectmanagementdocs.com, 2018). In beginning, the organization provides the effective design and high level manufacturing of the widget in low level prices. But past three years, it does not provide the effective designs and it slow to market and slow to pick up the widget design. So, organization CEO identified and addressed the organization issues to decide the new consultant to provide the effective business process for an organization.  The consultants are needs to improve the organization business operations. So, it comes to prepare project management plan to focus on how best to improve the organization business processes in manufacturing. It leads to production efficiency, adapting the processes to product demand and changes in resource availability (Pmi.org, 2018). The project management plan is used to allow user to stay flexible and dynamic by eliminating the waste to streamline processes. It describes the types of actions and waste that do not add any value to process like overproductions, defects and over processing. The Key performance indicators are used to measure the improvement of each department in the organization. The Key performance indicators are listed below.

Commendation and identification of exceptional performance

Continuously improvement

Timely identification of issues and resolution during the project process

Utilize the business contingency

Aligned with objectives

Unified with organizational efforts

Feasibility study is used to determine and evaluates the project potential for success and perceived objectivity. The project management feasibility is divided into five feasibility study such as technical feasibility, scheduling feasibility, operational feasibility, legal feasibility and economic feasibility. The technical feasibility is focuses on the technical resources available to the organization (Qualitydigest.com, 2018). In our project we are using the scheduling feasibility study. It is most important for project success and it estimates the how much time the project will take to complete the project. It also helps to identify the any constraints the proposed projects and it including the internal project constraints, external constraints and internal corporate constraints. It is used to improve the project team’s goals and it identifies the organization new opportunities. It provides the required project information and valuable information for an organization decision. It enhances the project success rate by evaluating the various parameters. It also identifies the valid reason to undertake the project (Slideshare.net, 2018).

Alternative Solutions

The Project stakeholders are provides the good idea to practice the good stakeholder management and it constantly communicate with them into to collaborate on the project. The stakeholder management plan typically includes the member of a project customers, user, project team, project sponsors, project managers and project executives. It has influence and authority to dictate whether a project is a success or not (Simplilearn.com, 2018). 

The project schedule management is used to provide the overall project plan. The project task is shown below (Opentextbc.ca, 2018).

Widgets ’R Us Widgets ’R Us (WRU) Project Plan

Start the Project

Gathering the product requirement

Analysis the project requirement

Identify the customer needs

Evaluation quality of existing products

Define the objective of new product

Measuring the current process.

Developing a baseline

Review the project processes

Concept design

Creative idea generation

Refine concepts

Design and develop changes to the process to ensure improvements as desired

Retrieve past design intent

Feasibility Study

Check strategic feasibility

Check market

Check technology capability

Check schedule feasibility

Check for resources available

Make decision to proceed

Review the Concept design and feasibility study

Detailed Design

Set the specifications

Design key characteristics

Produce Drawings

Produce Prototype

Test Product

Test product for user satisfaction

Test key characteristics

Validate the design to the process

Review the Detailed Design

Finalize Design

Review the design

Board Approval

Revise design

Freeze the design

Review the Finalize design

Set up production

Procure manufacturing capability

Design the tooling

Build the tools

Modify the building

Obtain equipment

Obtain manufacturing staff

Capability

Start up production

Get first parts from production

Test parts

Verify quality tolerances

Produce in volume

Review the set up production

Arrange marketing

Identify the key benefits of product

Identify the potential users

Plan marketing strategy

Produce the brochures and adverts

Produce Rainforest Campaign

Review arrange marketing processes

Arrange distribution

Establish the sales chain

Find local representatives

Establish business procedures

Set up technical support capability

Write use manual

Write service manual

Decide on warranty conditions

Obtain staff capability

Review the arrange distribution

Market Growth

Market maturation

Market decline

Declining sales

Refresh product

Launch derivative product

Differentiate service

Launch new product

Review the marketing processes

Product withdrawal

Decision to withdraw

Produce lifetime spares requirement

Decommission production

Achieve documentation

Review the overall product withdrawal

Project closure

Resources details are shown below.

Resource Name	Type	Initials	Max. Units	Std. Rate
Project Manager	Work	P	100%	$2,000.00/hr
Project Analyst	Work	P	100%	$2,000.00/hr
Project Designer	Work	P	100%	$1,500.00/hr
Developer	Work	D	100%	$2,000.00/hr
Tester	Work	T	100%	$1,800.00/hr
Technical Writer	Work	T	100%	$1,900.00/hr
Document Writer	Work	D	100%	$1,000.00/hr
Board Members	Work	B	100%	$2,500.00/hr
Senior Project Manager	Work	S	100%	$2,500.00/hr
Production Manager	Work	P	100%	$2,000.00/hr
Staff	Work	S	100%	$1,500.00/hr

Overall schedule management plan for WRU organization is shown below.

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors	Resource Names
Widgets ’R Us Widgets ’R Us (WRU) Project Plan	193 days	Mon 5/14/18	Wed 2/6/19
Start the Project	23 days	Mon 5/14/18	Wed 6/13/18
Gathering the product requirement	2 days	Mon 5/14/18	Tue 5/15/18		Project Analyst, Project Manager
Analysis the project requirement	2 days	Wed 5/16/18	Thu 5/17/18	3	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Identify the customer needs	3 days	Fri 5/18/18	Tue 5/22/18	4	Project Analyst, Project Designer, Staff
Evaluation quality of existing products	3 days	Wed 5/23/18	Fri 5/25/18	5	Project Manager, Staff
Define the objective of new product	4 days	Mon 5/28/18	Thu 5/31/18	6	Project Analyst, Project Designer, Project Manager, Staff
Measuring the current process.	3 days	Fri 6/1/18	Tue 6/5/18	7	Project Analyst, Project Designer, Project Manager, Staff
Developing a baseline	5 days	Wed 6/6/18	Tue 6/12/18	8	Project Designer, Project Manager
Review the project processes	1 day	Wed 6/13/18	Wed 6/13/18	9	Senior Project Manager
Concept design	16 days	Thu 6/14/18	Thu 7/5/18	7,10
Creative idea generation	2 days	Thu 6/14/18	Fri 6/15/18		Project Analyst, Project Designer, Project Manager
Refine concepts	6 days	Mon 6/18/18	Mon 6/25/18	12	Project Manager, Staff
Design and develop changes to the process to ensure improvements as desired	7 days	Tue 6/26/18	Wed 7/4/18	13	Developer
Retrieve past design intent	1 day	Thu 7/5/18	Thu 7/5/18	13,14	Project Analyst, Project Designer
Feasibility Study	15 days	Fri 7/6/18	Thu 7/26/18	15,11
Check strategic feasibility	3 days	Fri 7/6/18	Tue 7/10/18		Project Analyst, Project Manager, Staff, Technical Writer
Check market	1 day	Wed 7/11/18	Wed 7/11/18	17	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Check technology capability	4 days	Thu 7/12/18	Tue 7/17/18	18	Project Analyst, Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Check schedule feasibility	4 days	Wed 7/18/18	Mon 7/23/18	19	Developer, Project Analyst, Project Designer, Senior Project Manager
Check for resources available	1 day	Tue 7/24/18	Tue 7/24/18	20	Project Designer, Senior Project Manager
Make decision to proceed	1 day	Wed 7/25/18	Wed 7/25/18	21	Board Members, Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Review the Concept design and feasibility study	1 day	Thu 7/26/18	Thu 7/26/18	22	Senior Project Manager
Detailed Design	25 days	Fri 7/27/18	Thu 8/30/18	22,23
Set the specifications	2 days	Fri 7/27/18	Mon 7/30/18		Project Manager
Design key characteristics	3 days	Tue 7/31/18	Thu 8/2/18	25	Developer, Project Analyst, Project Designer
Produce Drawings	3 days	Fri 8/3/18	Tue 8/7/18	26	Developer
Produce Prototype	5 days	Wed 8/8/18	Tue 8/14/18	27	Developer, Project Designer
Test Product	2 days	Wed 8/15/18	Thu 8/16/18	28	Developer, Project Designer
Test product for user satisfaction	2 days	Fri 8/17/18	Mon 8/20/18	29	Tester
Test key characteristics	2 days	Tue 8/21/18	Wed 8/22/18	30	Tester
Validate the design to the process	5 days	Thu 8/23/18	Wed 8/29/18	31	Developer, Tester
Review the Detailed Design	1 day	Thu 8/30/18	Thu 8/30/18	32	Senior Project Manager
Finalize Design	6 days	Fri 8/31/18	Fri 9/7/18	31,24
Review the design	2 days	Fri 8/31/18	Mon 9/3/18		Developer, Project Manager, Tester
Board Approval	1 day	Tue 9/4/18	Tue 9/4/18	35	Board Members
Revise design	1 day	Wed 9/5/18	Wed 9/5/18	36	Developer, Project Designer, Senior Project Manager
Freeze the design	1 day	Thu 9/6/18	Thu 9/6/18	37	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Review the Finalize design	1 day	Fri 9/7/18	Fri 9/7/18	38	Senior Project Manager
Set up production	42 days	Mon 9/10/18	Tue 11/6/18	38,34
Procure manufacturing capability	2 days	Mon 9/10/18	Tue 9/11/18		Production Manager, Project Analyst, Project Manager
Design the tooling	2 days	Wed 9/12/18	Thu 9/13/18	41	Production Manager, Project Manager
Build the tools	2 days	Fri 9/14/18	Mon 9/17/18	42	Production Manager, Project Manager
Modify the building	3 days	Tue 9/18/18	Thu 9/20/18	43	Production Manager
Obtain equipment	5 days	Fri 9/21/18	Thu 9/27/18	44	Production Manager, Project Analyst
Obtain manufacturing staff	3 days	Fri 9/28/18	Tue 10/2/18	45	Production Manager, Project Manager, Staff
Capability	5 days	Wed 10/3/18	Tue 10/9/18	46	Production Manager
Start up production	3 days	Wed 10/10/18	Fri 10/12/18	47	Production Manager
Get first parts from production	3 days	Mon 10/15/18	Wed 10/17/18	48	Production Manager, Project Manager
Test parts	3 days	Thu 10/18/18	Mon 10/22/18	49	Production Manager, Tester
Verify quality tolerances	4 days	Tue 10/23/18	Fri 10/26/18	50	Production Manager, Project Manager
Produce in volume	6 days	Mon 10/29/18	Mon 11/5/18	51	Production Manager
Review the set up production	1 day	Tue 11/6/18	Tue 11/6/18	52	Senior Project Manager
Arrange marketing	14 days	Wed 11/7/18	Mon 11/26/18	52,40
Identify the key benefits of product	3 days	Wed 11/7/18	Fri 11/9/18		Production Manager, Project Manager
Identify the potential users	2 days	Mon 11/12/18	Tue 11/13/18	55	Production Manager, Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Plan marketing strategy	3 days	Wed 11/14/18	Fri 11/16/18	56	Production Manager, Project Manager
Produce the brochures and adverts	2 days	Mon 11/19/18	Tue 11/20/18	57	Staff
Produce Rainforest Campaign	3 days	Wed 11/21/18	Fri 11/23/18	58	Project Analyst, Staff
Review arrange marketing processes	1 day	Mon 11/26/18	Mon 11/26/18	59	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Arrange distribution	20 days	Tue 11/27/18	Mon 12/24/18	59,54
Establish the sales chain	3 days	Tue 11/27/18	Thu 11/29/18		Project Manager
Find local representatives	3 days	Fri 11/30/18	Tue 12/4/18	62	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Establish business procedures	4 days	Wed 12/5/18	Mon 12/10/18	63	Production Manager
Set up technical support capability	1 day	Tue 12/11/18	Tue 12/11/18	64	Production Manager, Project Manager
Write use manual	1 day	Wed 12/12/18	Wed 12/12/18	65	Document Writer, Technical Writer
Write service manual	1 day	Thu 12/13/18	Thu 12/13/18	66	Document Writer, Technical Writer
Decide on warranty conditions	3 days	Fri 12/14/18	Tue 12/18/18	67	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Obtain staff capability	3 days	Wed 12/19/18	Fri 12/21/18	68	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Review the arrange distribution	1 day	Mon 12/24/18	Mon 12/24/18	69	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Market Growth	4 days	Tue 12/25/18	Fri 12/28/18	69,61	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Market maturation	4 days	Mon 12/31/18	Thu 1/3/19	71	Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Market decline	12 days	Fri 1/4/19	Mon 1/21/19	72
Declining sales	1 day	Fri 1/4/19	Fri 1/4/19	72	Project Analyst
Refresh product	3 days	Mon 1/7/19	Wed 1/9/19	74	Developer, Project Analyst
Launch derivative product	1 day	Thu 1/10/19	Thu 1/10/19	75	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Differentiate service	3 days	Fri 1/11/19	Tue 1/15/19	76	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Launch new product	3 days	Wed 1/16/19	Fri 1/18/19	77	Board Members, Project Manager, Senior Project Manager
Review the marketing processes	1 day	Mon 1/21/19	Mon 1/21/19	78	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Product withdrawal	12 days	Tue 1/22/19	Wed 2/6/19	78,73
Decision to withdraw	2 days	Tue 1/22/19	Wed 1/23/19		Board Members
Produce lifetime spares requirement	3 days	Thu 1/24/19	Mon 1/28/19	81	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Decommission production	2 days	Tue 1/29/19	Wed 1/30/19	82	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Achieve documentation	4 days	Thu 1/31/19	Tue 2/5/19	83	Document Writer, Senior Project Manager, Technical Writer
Review the overall product withdrawal	1 day	Wed 2/6/19	Wed 2/6/19	84	Board Members, Senior Project Manager
Project closure	1 day	Wed 2/6/19	Wed 2/6/19	84,16	Board Members, Senior Project Manager

The project cost is shown below.

Name	Remaining Cost	Cost	Baseline Cost	Cost Variance
Widgets ’R Us Widgets ’R Us (WRU) Project Plan	$6,343,733.33	$6,343,733.33	$0.00	$6,343,733.33

Resource cost is shown below.

Name	Standard Rate
Project Manager	$2,000.00/hr
Project Analyst	$2,000.00/hr
Project Designer	$1,500.00/hr
Developer	$2,000.00/hr
Tester	$1,800.00/hr
Technical Writer	$1,900.00/hr
Document Writer	$1,000.00/hr
Board Members	$2,500.00/hr
Senior Project Manager	$2,500.00/hr
Production Manager	$2,000.00/hr
Staff	$1,500.00/hr

The project quality management is used to provide the quality baseline for the project. It is used to provide a basis for ensuring product quality and it measures the products is acceptable or not. It is used to clearly define the communication quality standards and it provides purpose of the quality baseline services. The project quality management is also meets the project quality standard and it established in the project quality baseline (Stewart and Usmani, 2018).

The project risk management is used to gives the general description for the project approach and it used to manage and identify the project risks. This plan manages the risks for WRU organization and it includes the methodical process. The methodical process is used for project team to identify the risk scores and ranks. It identifies the risks that are used to implement the project mitigation strategy. And, it ensures the assigned risk managers to makes the required steps ti implement the mitigation response at the project schedule time. The assigned project and risk managers are used to identifying the improvement that can be made to the project risk management processes (Project Management Guide, 2018).

The project procurement management plan is used to define enough to clearly identify the required responsibilities and steps for procurement from begin to project end.  This plan is basically used to ensure the project plan facilitates that used to provide the successful project completion. It also used to provide the management and oversight for all procurement activities under the project.

Conclusion

The WRU is a medium sized organization and it specializing in the manufacture and designing of the widgets. It provides the stable widgets for a market. This organization is able to compete by the low priced company in the market. But, past three years the WRU organization has the demand for widgets has exploded. It has various problems and it was finding itself unable to complete the successfully in the new widgets in the dynamic market and also the organization CEO addresses the many problems like widgets are slow to market and slow to pick up signs form the marketplace. So, the organization Board members and CEO called the consultant to analyze the WRU operations. It is used to improve the organization business process and also provide the project management plan to sustain the competitive advantage in the widget market. The consultant is created the project management plan to provide the effective business process for an organization.

References

Gina Abudi. (2018). Project Management Approach for Business Process Improvement – Gina Abudi. [online] Available at: https://www.ginaabudi.com/articles/project-management-approach-for-business-process-improvement/ [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Opentextbc.ca. (2018). 5. Stakeholder Management – Project Management. [online] Available at: https://opentextbc.ca/projectmanagement/chapter/chapter-5-project-stakeholders-project-management/ [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Pmi.org. (2018). Project management for new product development. [online] Available at: https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-management-new-product-development-2391 [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Project Management Guide. (2018). What is a Stakeholder in Project Management? – Project Management Guide. [online] Available at: https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/faq/what-is-a-stakeholder-in-project-management/ [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Projectmanagementdocs.com. (2018). Project Management Plan Template – Free Project Plan. [online] Available at: https://www.projectmanagementdocs.com/project-planning-templates/project-management-plan.html#axzz5FGtJiV00 [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Qualitydigest.com. (2018). Improving Manufacturing Processes Through Lean Implementation | Quality Digest. [online] Available at: https://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insider-article/tips-improving-manufacturing-practices-through-lean-implementation [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Simplilearn.com. (2018). Why a Feasibility Study is Important in Project Management. [online] Available at: https://www.simplilearn.com/feasibility-study-article [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Slideshare.net. (2018). I.C. Engines / Turbocharger and-supercharger. [online] Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/shanmugammech/ic-engines-turbocharger-andsupercharger [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Stewart, S. and Usmani, F. (2018). Stakeholders in Project Management. [online] Pmstudycircle.com. Available at: https://pmstudycircle.com/2012/03/stakeholders-in-project-management-definition-and-types/ [Accessed 12 May 2018].

Tremel, A. (2018). 5 Project Management Lessons For Manufacturing. [online] Available at: https://www.mbtmag.com/article/2015/06/5-project-management-lessons-manufacturing [Accessed 29 May 2015].