Question

ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTIONDeliverable Length:
2-3 pages + chart
OBJECTIVES

The CEO has asked you and Jane to create a chart that he might use as part of his decision process in deciding what countries in which to locate overseas factories. He also wants an accompanying recommendation summary from an HR perspective.

Prepare a 6-column, 5-row chart for the following countries and parameters:

Columns (countries) are:

Japan

Mexico

India

China

Italy

Germany

Rows (factors to research) for each country are:

Average manufacturing wage

Country's minimum wage

Typical restrictive work rules where there are unions

How unions enhance or detract from company results

Country's unemployment rate

It is unlikely that you will find all of the necessary data in one online database. Instead, you will have to research a number of different ones.

In addition, in some cases you may have to make calculations from a "base=100" report to get an actual dollar figure.

Ensure that you cite the references used, in proper APA format.

Wikipedia is an unacceptable reference

For minimum wages, try one of the following sites:

Minimum wages

List of minimum wages by country

For unemployment percentages try the following site:

Unemployment rate (most recent) by country (be sure to note the year of the data)

Your recommendation summary should explain which country you recommend for the future overseas expansion, based solely on the data in your chart.

Answer 1

Determine the expected completion time and the variance for each activity

In project management, prioritization is very important for the achievement of the most pressing company goals. This calls for managers to be very purposeful and timely in delivery.

Before schedules of operation are made, it is a requirement that the project is broken down into simpler individual activities. Simpler tasks which form the foundation of the project are began with. The activities that are initiated secede the next till the entire project is completed. After breaking down the project into small manageable tasks, time is assigned to each. The order of tasks is now clear and the total time to be taken on each task. Each task leads to another and this forms a sequence or an order. The sequence that appears to take the longest time in completion is called the critical path. Despite the fact that it takes long, the critical path obeys the project sequence following activities in an orderly manner without leaving gaps (Agyei, W. 2015).

After calculating the time duration of the critical path, it becomes easier to anticipate the time likely to complete the project. I.e. adding the individual times taken throughout the individual tasks in the critical path right from the date of initiation to the completion one.

If in a project, you are faced with fifty activities on schedule, each of the fifty activities would have an estimate associate- the most likely estimate. PERT is a model used for estimation on the basis of pessimistic time (PT), the most likely estimate (MT) and the optimistic time (OT). The weighted average of the three variables is deemed the most accurate completion time (Agyei, W. 2015).

Calculations for the PERT of each activity will be represented as follows:

Completion time, t = (OT + 4MT + PT) / 6

This is the weighted average of the three variables.

The most likely estimate is usually weighted 4 times more than the other variables.

Activity1: t = (2+4(3) +4)/6

= 3 days

Activity 2: t = (3+4(6) +9)/6

= 6 days

Activity 3: t = (4+4(8) +12)/6

= 8 days

Activity 4: t = (6+4(8) +10)/6

= 8 days

Activity 5: t = (8+4(10) +12)/6

= 10 days

Activity 6: t = (10+4(14) +18)/6

= 14 days

Activity 7: t = (4+4(6) +8)/6

= 6 days

Variance:

The formula to calculate the variance is as follows;

Variance (α²) = [(PT- OT) / 6] ²

Activity 1: α² = [(4-2)/6] ²

= 1/9 days

Activity 2: α² = [(9-3)/6] ²

= 1 day

Activity 3: α² = [(12-4)/6] ²

= 16/9 days

Activity 4: α² = [(10-6)/6] ²

= 4/9 days

Activity 5: α² = [(12-8)/6] ²

= 4/9 days

Activity 6: α² = [(18-10)/6] ²

= 16/9 days

Activity 7: α² = [(8-4)/6] ²

= 4/9 days

Determine the total project completion time and the critical path for the project

Project completion time = sum of the individual activity completion times

= 3+6+8+8+10+14+6 = 55days

The critical path is calculated by first identifying the routes with no slack;

I.e. activities 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7, since they have no slack attached to them

Therefore,

3+6+8+10+14+6 = 47 days

Determine Early Start (ES), Early Finish (EF), Late Start (LS), and slack for each activity

Early start of the different activities:

Activity

ES

EF

LS

Slack

1

0

3

3

3

2

3

9

9

0

3

9

11

5

4

4

14

24

14

0

5

24

38

24

0

6

24

19

11

7

7

40

34

40

0

• What is the probability that McGee Carpet and Trim will finish the project in 40 days or less?

The probability that the company would achieve the project completion within the projected 40 days will be given by the below formula:

Probability = Desired completion time (To) - Mean / variance of the critical path

I.e. P = 40 - 47 / (0.11+1.00+1.77+0.44+0.44+1.77+0.44)

-7/6.3 = -1.1

This means that, it is impossible for the company to complete the project within a period of 40 days.

Define project management and the necessary requirements.

Project management is basically the planning, controlling and organizing operations of a given project so as to achieve the project goals. It is a skill that requires the utilization of knowledge, both from a formal education background as well as from an experience's point of view.

Necessities of project management include:

Project management has a wide range of requirements, below are the most vital requirements management (Verzuh, E. 2015);

Planning requirements, verification requirements, requirements definition, requirements Gathering and Elicitation, requirements development, requirements change management and requirements analysis. The integration of these couple of requirements into the project at hand, success is mandated.

• Analyze implications of changes in project scheduling.

Poor performance of some activities; change in schedules defer a well thought action into some projected dates which significantly affect the performance of the project.

Leads to delays in the critical path; the implication of this is a total failure if not delay of the entire project.

It curtails timely response to issues that arise in the course of the project. This makes changes impossible hence degrading the level of performance.

• Evaluate application of project management techniques in terms of the firm's business operational goals and requirements.

Helps in the development of an elaborate work structures within the business setting, a project meaner gains maximum experience across that makes them work in entire firm's financial constricts, a project manager can project on risks and put strategies to curtail them, a principle obtained from this course of study and most importantly, one is in a position to align the goals of the company with the goals of the individual employees so as to concentrate purpose (Kerzner et al, 2017).

References

Agyei, W. (2015). Project planning and scheduling using PERT and CPM techniques with linear programming: case study. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 4(8), 222-227.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Verzuh, E. (2015). The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.

ALTERNATIVE:

Please see the image below and the format which the spreadsheet would be, the figures used are indicative in nature, kindly use your data by creating the spreadsheet (P>S - we cannot attach the Excel file in the answer section)