Conclusion

The project implementation phase includes organizing and execution, controlling & tracking and leading. Thus, we need to MONITOR our project. The progress needs to be tracked to ensure it is on-track, on time and within budget. Besides, we must have conflict management and change management. Until certain state, we must have project closure and commission. It is to finalize all activities across all of the process groups to formally close the project or a project phase.

  

Project Life Cycle

As the conclusion, Project Management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives. We learned the Project Life Cycle in this course including Initiating phase, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Network Diagram (AON), Scheduling, Budgeting, Risk Management, Earned Value Analysis (EVA), SWOT Analysis, Team & Leadership, Communication and Conflict and Project Tracking, Control & Closure.

We would like to 10s our lecturer, Mr. Yap Chin Hooi, who has helped us to gain valuable knowledge in the project management which will be beneficial us in future. ^.^

Details of Costing & ROI

Now, we still left Tutorial 3 yet to complete. It is the last but it is the most important tutorial among the 5 tutorials. In the class, we learned different types of cost that will be incurred in our project including fixed cost, variable cost and other cost. In the Tutorial 3, we need to perform an ROI (Return of Investment) on our project and indicate the assumptions we have make such as how much we hire a worker. To make a decision whether to implement a project, the ROI should be at least 0.5, else we must re-consider whether we want to continue on it.  

Due to the Chinese New Year holiday is coming soon, our beloved lecturer gives us much time to complete our Tutorial 3 and Tutorial 5…..the submission date for both tutorials is on 9^th February. Yeah!!! ^.^ 

Our calculation on costing and ROI is based on the yearly basic. Below is the summary: 

Total Cost of Expenses 

Contingency Cost = total cost of investment x 10%

                              = S$55,945 x 10%

                              = S$5,594.50 (so we take S$5,595 as a round cost)

The total investment cost are = total expenses + total contingency cost
                                                = S$55,945 + S$5,595
                                                = S$61,540

Benefits/Gain from the investment

ROI = (Gain from Investment – Costs of Investment)/Costs of Investment

        = S$(120,120 – 61,540)/S$61,540

        = 0.95

Risk Management

After 3 weeks of mid semester break, our happy times are OVER and we need to go back to school again! Today’s lecture is about Risk Management, we learned about the process to manage risk in a project such as risk identification, risk analysis and prioritization and risk control. After some practices on the risk analysis, our lecturer assigned us to work on the Tutorial 5, which needs us to use the WBS to carry out a Risk Assessment and analyze our project. We need to discuss the top 5 issues and select 2 of the top risks and predicting the impact on cost and schedule.

OMG!! We need to come out for group discussing again on weekend! Really tiring :(……..  

Prioritizing Risks by Scoring



Possible Solutions for Top 5 Risk Items

  

Impact to the project

Schedule Planning and Network Analysis

It seems that we didn’t update our portfolio for quite a period of time due to the mid semester test and 3 weeks of holiday. Oh my goodness, so enjoy….Hooray!!!

Wait wait wait……is there some things that we have missed up???!! Oh…our Tutorial 4 assignment!!

We are requested to create a schedule for our project using Microsoft Project 2007 based on the derived WBS and also perform a network analysis (AON) with a stated assumption using Microsoft Visio. The lucky thing is we are still remembered how to use the Microsoft Project and Visio after a long break, and finally come out with the “answer” as per below:-

WBS of the Inventory Tracking System

Inventory Tracking System Project Plan



AON for Inventory Tracking Sytem Project

Summary:

Earliest Finish Time: 82 days

Latest Finish Time: 85 days

Float: 3 days

Critical Path: A-B-C-D-F-G-H-K-L

We spent our time for meeting up on weekend and weekday and always out of mind and want to give up, nevertheless, each day brings its own bread. We have finished and can submit it on time. Time flies as swiftly as an arrow, we will be facing you (our LOVELY lecturer) soon…..Oh…words can hardly describe how “xxx” we are..Haha….. :)



Mind Mapping & WBS



Mind Mapping Diagram - Inventory Tracking System



On Week 4, we were told to do a “Mind Mapping Exercise" after lecturer showed the way of doing it. It's fun especially when comes to search for pictures and videos to attach to it. We do really enjoy doing it because we have a funny and humorous lecturer that we ever had before. At least the advantage part is not a “BORINGGG” lecturer and you know who is he???!! Yes, is Mr. Yap Chin Hooi… Hurray!!

On Week 5, we had a “Network Diagram” activity. It’s quite complicated especially come to the calculation on the “Backward Pass”.  It’s CHALLENGING!!! All of us were beating our brains out for the calculation...  Our lecturer knew that we were quite poor on this, so he decided to give us more exercises so that we can practice more & improve it. So… how THOUGHTFUL he is…Praised the Lord!! And do you know what!!! This type of question will come out in our coming Mid Term Exam!!! Help!!!!!!!!....

Fortunately, we still able to had a sweet dream of that night and never had a nightmare.  JJ However, we will be exhausted on this soon because this will be our next tutorial exercise… God bless us!!… :p

Project Background & Overview

Company Overview and Project Opportunities:

LIMS is a global producer and marketer of specialty chemicals and advanced materials. The group is the world’s largest refiner of cobalt and considers its key competencies to be in the areas of particle size control, surface modification and high purity/highly functional organic and inorganic materials.

The business of LIMS Ultra Pure Chemicals (UPC) produces and supplies unique ultra pure chemicals solutions to the semiconductor and microelectronics industries from Singapore in Asia, Europe and the United States. Alongside and in support of the excellent chemicals, LIMS UPC provides world-class chemical management and analytical services.

Besides having the ability to supply high purity/specialty chemicals, LIMS UPC has the following distinctive competencies:
 ~  On site chemical management services to ensure uninterrupted supply of chemicals and point of use guarantee. This includes on site chemical inventory management and distribution, maintenance and troubleshooting of chemical distribution systems, point of use sampling and real time Statistical Process Control (SPC).

 ~  Analysis of chemicals before delivery to customers and analysis of point of use samples for quality monitoring through SPC. The laboratory with Class 10 clean room conditions and Class 1 mini-environments is equipped with the necessary state of the art equipment for providing full spectrum analysis at part per trillion (ppt) levels for trace metal contaminants.

 ~  Just in time deliveries in Singapore/Malaysia from a large safety stock at LIMS UPC's warehouse; logistic support for other Asian markets.

 ~  Storage of chemicals in temperature controlled areas.

In order to support for the analytical services, appropriate empty bottles will be sending to the customers to fill in the chemicals/material that they would like to do testing. However, there is no proper system in place to track the location of the bottles, whether the customer is returned the bottles or the bottles have been disposed.  

Objectives:
1.  To improve inventory tracking and visibility with real time tracking
2.  To minimize investment in inventory at minimum level to maximize profitability

Current issues

1.  There is no system in place to track the inventory of bottles. As the result, there is missing bottles in between of the process when sending to customer sites. Thus, company needs to spend money to purchase new bottles.

2.  As there is no tracking of the bottle inventory, some of the bottles are expired shelf life.

3.  There is problem to identify the bottles' location, so there is time needed to locate the respective bottles.

Scope:

·         Estimated Duration – 4 months

·         Total estimated Cost - SGD65000

Ø  Hardware – SGD20000

Ø  Software – SGD45000

·         Responsibility Matrix

Ø  Project Manager - Wong Fong Yeen

Ø  Software Engineer – Lee Ai Chin

Ø  Procurement – Char Lai Peng

Ø  Scheduler - Gan Chai Huong

·         Man power requirements

Ø  Internal

v  Project sponsor – Supporting the project manager in managing the project.

v  Project manager – Role of responsibilities are developing the project plan, manage the project team and risk, monitor the project schedule, attainable project objectives and building the project requirements.

v  Software engineer – Applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, testing and evaluation.

v  Procurement – Source for competitive pricing for equipments and raw materials.

v  Planner – Work out a plan to monitor the progress before the project kick off until project completion.

v  Storekeeper – Paste the label tag onto the bottles and keep track on the inventory movement to ensure the bottles are in order.

v  Maintenance/Facility – Approval is required before RFID system can be installed.

Ø  External

v  RFID vendor – Provide professional service, advise and installation that related to RFID system.

·         Resources requirement

Ø  SAP (existing application)

Ø  RFID readers and RFID tags

Ø  Bottles 

Introduction to Project Management (Week 1 & Week 2 - 20/10/10, 27/10/10)

In the 1^st lesson of the Project Management in Supply Chain, we are asked to form a group and do a project on any topic by our lecturer, Mr. Yap Chin Hooi. Its cause us a lot of hassle to do this project because it is very time consuming by only given us a short lead time to do it and there will be total of 5 tutorials.  Its means we have to come out every 2 weeks for discussion with team mates. Oh my GOD, our weekend is BURN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..................... LLL Help!!!

In our 1^st lesson, we had decided to do on Inventory Tracking System project.   Initially, we are planning to do bar code technology in tracking system. However, our lecturer said that it is outdated and it is a VERY SMALL PROJECT.  So, after much consideration and discussion we had decided to choose RFID technology instead of bar code. 

On the 2^nd lesson, our lecturer has given us time for discussion after we did our first activity. As we managed to get some information regarding RFID before hand, our lecturer praised us for being hardworking and efficient. (Any bonus marks??)  J    As we are unable to finish our discussion, we had decided to meet again on Sunday.  Our discussion covered Tutorial 1 such as objectives, scope and sketch.  We also come up with the e-portfolio as well.

FINALLY… lunch time at Ajisen… Hope this will not be every week, otherwise we are going to BANKRUPT!!!. We are wonder whether we can “CLAIM” this from our lecturer… heheheheheh!!  We’re going to submit our claim on our 3^rd lesson…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How RFID Technology Works in Supply Chain:-