Case Questions: Global Outreach, an oil & gas company, has decided to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrated business system to help manage both their upstream and downstream business activities. To have the new ERP system implemented soon, Victor Chea, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) who had overall responsibility for the project's completion, began applying some project management techniques he learned in an operations management course that was required for his business degree. This required Victor to identify all the various activities that were required as part of this project and understand how they were related. Assume that today's date is May 9th, 2022. Victor knew that the Board of Directors (BOD) would have to approve such a major expenditure before the project could start, but first a proposal & budget would have to be prepared. Once approval was received, temporary employees could be hired and trained so that key employees could be freed from their regular responsibilities. Victor knows that after board approval, it will take several weeks to determine the detailed specifications. Modifying the software can begin after the detailed specifications have been identified. Once the detailed specifications are finalized and the temporary employees hired and trained, process flow analysis (past & future) could begin. Upon completion of the process flow analysis, the legacy data conversion could be started and the setup of system parameters could be done simultaneously. Once the systems parameters were setup, training documentation could be prepared. After the software modifications have been completed, system testing and adjustments could be performed. Once training documentation and system testing and adjustments has been completed, a small amount of data can be loaded into a test database. End user training cannot begin until the test database has been prepared. Once all of the above activities are complete, company could "go live" on the new software system. In preparation for the upcoming board meeting, Victor developed an initial budget for the project based on the normal costs associated with each of the project's individual activities. Victor's estimated cost for each activity is shown below, along with the activity's estimated completion time. Also listed are crash costs and crash times, in the event it would be necessary to accelerate a specific activity so that the project could be completed sooner. Victor's Initial Estimate for the Project: Activity Description Normal Completion Time Normal Cost Crash Time Crash Costs* (weeks) (in $000s) (weeks) (in $000s)
1 Prepare proposal & budget 4 12 3 15 2 BOD Approval 3 15 1 25
3 Hire & train temps 8 15 5 27
4 Detailed specifications 6 5 6 5
5 Process flows analysis 30 2000 24 2300
6 Modify software 36 360 22 570
7 Testing & adjustments 10 316 6 360
8 Setup system parameters 5 100 3 128
9 Legacy data conversion 6 60 4 90
10 Training documentation 4 80 3 87 11 Prepare "test" database 3 8 1 16
12 End-user training 6 24 4 40
13 Go live
*Crash costs are the total costs associated with the accelerated activity. The weekly increase in costs for a given activity is assumed to be constant.
Note: Prepare your submission assuming that you are the project leader and that you are providing this information to the project manager and project team at a project "kick-off" meeting. Thus, a professional appearance and clear and concise responses (explaining your answers and showing relevant calculations ) are required. Organize your submission so that your responses are enterly in sequiential order
(question 1, question 2, question 3, etc). Do not use exhibits at the end your submission.