Advanced Project Planning & Visualisation

Assignment

Submission deadline 7th May 2023, midnight

Your submission (including the front page and references) should not be longer than 10 pages A4. You must adhere strictly to this page limit. Writing beyond the specified page limit will be ignored.

 You should not use font size smaller than 11, line spacing smaller than 1, nor margins smaller than 2cm.

Marks will be awarded based on the following criteria:

  • Your understanding of the main themes of the lectures.
  • Evidence that you have read additional material and refer (using references) to the contributions from relevant authors in the field.
  • Clear structure and presentation of the software (MS-Project, Synchro Pro) outputs and their analysis.

Report Submission

  • You should submit on the Blackboard, No extension is given
  • Report should be submitted in a single .doc or .docx format file; pdf, .xls or other format is not accepted.
  • File name of the submission document should include your first and last names
  • All output from used software (MS Project, Synchro Pro) should be exported to your assignment document. No Excel, Project or Synchro files are accepted.

 The Assignment is worth 100% of the module. Each part of this assignment is worth 25% of the module.

 

PART 1 (25% of the assignment)

There is an increasing demand in the international market for high quality project managers to run multinational and multi-sites projects. As a Project Manager you have been given the task by an international company to identify qualities and attributes of project managers with emphasis on project planning and project organisation domain.

You need to include the following, backed-up with journals, books and references:

  1. Communications, with emphasis on a project manager working remotely with project team members. (9% of the assignment)
  2. Managing multi-cultural project stakeholders. (8% of the assignment)
  3. Develop scenarios where a project manager has to cope with pressures from stakeholders with respect to cost and time overruns and outline how advanced planning and scheduling technique can help overcome these issues. (8% of the assignment)

 

Part 2 (25% of the assignment)   

Augmented/Virtual/Mixed/Extended Reality

Discuss and analyse the practicality of AR/VR/MR/XR application in the industrial sector in which you have experience. Provide outline analysis of value and constraints of applying the approach. Use the following papers as example references for your bibliography (1000 words). You need to build a bibliography of at least 20 recent (within the last 5 years) references from a range of sources.

Dudhee, V. and Vukovic, V. (2021), “Building information model visualisation in augmented reality”, Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-02-2021-0021

Alizadehsalehi, S., Hadavi, A., Huang, J. C. (2020), “From BIM to extended reality in AEC industry”, Automation in Construction, Vol. 116, No.103254, ISSN 0926-5805,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103254

 

PART 3 (25% of the assignment)

A Teesside PLC has won a contract to work on a major Project to start on 1st December 2023. As a Project Manager you need to develop and analyse the planning schedule for this project using MS-Project. Your project team has identified major activities of the project, their dependency and resources needed to run each activity (see Appendix 1).

Appendix 1 provides information about the project, which includes project logic (activity links and their relationship – finish to start (FS), start to start (SS), and start to finish (SF), activity durations, resource allocation and work breakdown structure (WBS).

You have been asked to perform the following planning and scheduling processes using Microsoft Project 2012 or later version.

 

A: CPM & WBS (10% of the assignment)

  1. Draw a Gantt-Chart and CPM network for the project. Calculate early start (ES), early finish (EF), late start (LS), late finish (LF) and total float (TF) based on As Soon as Possible (ASAP) method and identify critical path.
  2. Draw WBS for the project (must include Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4) and discuss the importance of WBS as a Project Management tool.
  3. Explain why identification of the critical path is important? Also comment on the changes to the Critical Path, if the project is developed using As Late as Possible (ALAP)

 

B: Resource Planning (10% of the assignment)

  1. Produce and draw smoothed resource histograms for the skilled labour resources used in the project. Critically assess the output identifying the maximum units of each resource required for this project.
  2. Carry-out resource levelling for Unskilled resource only (do not use automatic resource levelling) and discuss how activities might be delayed beyond the latest start time (LST) to cater for the limits on Unskilled resources as a result of levelling. Consider resource pool for unskilled resources as 7 units per day.
  3. Explain and discuss the process of resource levelling.

 

C: Cost Analysis (5% of the assignment)                                                 

  1. Calculate the cost of each activity in the project (level 3). Consider the standard cost of a skilled labour as £20/hr, unskilled labour as £10/hr and equipment as £50/hr.
  2. Produce cumulative cost-time curve for the project.

 

Note:

  • Start the project on 1st December 2023.
  • Use default UK working calendar (i.e. Saturdays and Sundays are non-working days, 8 working hours in a day, bank holidays should be considered as non-working days)
  • Use resource unit as decimal.
  • Use fixed duration and set unit as days.
  • Clearly identify each part of the answers to the questions.
  • Use header and footer to clearly indicate what the chart or graph is showing.

 

 

PART 4 (25% of the assignment)

4D Planning

  1. Use Synchro Pro software and link the Building Project planning data with the given 3D CAD Building Model. Use both Assignment2.1.xml and Assignment2.2.xml with Assignment2.dxf. You will have two different models to review. Identify issues and conflicts with the proposed plans and changes. You should provide the pictures of the visualisation on your assignment. Briefly discuss the linking procedure carried out. (13% of the assignment).
  2. Define 4D planning. Discuss the purpose and benefits of 4D systems as a Project Management tool in an Engineering industry (12% of the assignment)