Woody Contruction Company Essay Example for Free

Woody Contruction Company Essay The Custom Woodworking Company is a small-to-medium sized custom furniture and cabinet making company located in Someplace, British Columbia. It is represented by Ron Carpenter, CEO, his wife Emelia Carpenter, the president and their son John Carpenter, the director. The company is privately held with approximately 850 employees. Throughout the years, they quickly gained reputation for attractively designed and well-constructed furniture and built up a loyal staff and work force. Woody 2000 project started in 1989, as a result of a boom in the commercial construction activities and the intentions of the management. The production floor of The Custom Woodworking Company was to expand by 25% with an estimated budget of 17 million dollars. The timeframe for this would be approximately 18 months. This expansion would include an equipment installation of semi-automatic woodworking trains, which requires both software and hardware to operate the system. Introduction: A Project Manager is a person responsible for accomplishing project objectives. These objectives include initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing of the project. Project Management can be defined as being an art of controlling the cost, time, manpower, and hardware and software resources involved in a project. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMI 2008) define project management as â€Å"the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements†. Successful organizations have some sort of project some time or another throughout the lifetime of the project. The owners and contractors have different ideas of what they want done. In the construction world the common bond is to create a successful project with high quality, desired completion date and the actual costs While reading through the Woody 2000 Project there were a few things that I discovered that could have been done to maybe enhance the project. Scope is very important in the definition of project requirements at the start of the project and if a portion of this is missed it can cause unforeseen extra cost and variation of cost and the final product. Defining the project scope is to identify all the work in details that the project will accomplish in order to achieve its final goal. The work includes the activities in which the project members have identified will be necessary to support the project and all the other instances surrounding delivery of the project. There was a lack of planning. The expansion was based on a mini boom in the construction industry, but no one took the time to conduct a statistical plan as to whether or not the boom was going to last and for how long. It may have been defined to the key players, but not to the actual people that need to know. In my opinion the project was not carefully planned out. Vice President of Finance and Administration, Spencer Moneysworth did not have the project management skills that was needed for this project. The fact that he decided not to involve the production people was a mistake. He should have included all key players from every section whether they were at management level or not. Because of the short suspense, and he did not want to waste any unnecessary time, he immediately invited the Expert Industrial developers (EID) to get a quote. There were poor management, VP Moneysworth may be good at Finance and Administration, but he lacked the management skills to make this project successful. There was not an actual project manager, which was needed because of the estimated cost for the project was given a cash flow versus working out the necessary details that was required and breaking down every section that was to be expanded, materials, resources and supplies. Timelines and budget were set without considering any internal or external problems. The initial objective was to increase production efficiency and keep up with the current demands, but the expansion quickly turned into an expansion of the current facility to an upgrade in offices. The completion date of the project and the amount were somewhat unrealistic. The company did create a monthly cash flow chart for the project. Another issue is that there was not an evaluation process that states when there would be another meeting or to check on progress of the project. Communication management which is also a vital part of any project was a flaw in this project. Having good communication will determine the flow of information. Effective communication can lead to a successful project and should be frequent and relevant. Another reason they should have communicated is because after they realize the price and time of the project they should have relook their approach. In conclusion the biggest problem that I see with Woody’s 2000 project is the planning and communication phase. They did not effectively plan and implement what they wanted to do and there was no communication between department heads and contractors. If they had planned properly and involved the right personnel they would have been more successful.