Project Management and Walmart Essay Example

of Walter is o extend its products to every possible household and make every product available to the common man through its wide network of stores all over the USA. The strategy is also to provide empowerment and work to as many people as it can and make the supply chain management a very safe and profitable process. It gets its groceries from unknown and untapped resources thereby making it a virtual assembly house of varied manufactured products.

Project 2 Consider Wall-Mart.

Integrate the concepts and operations management principles that you've been studying in this module and turn in your one to two page paper dressing the following questions: How project management influence other departments and functions of this organization (I. E. , marketing, finance, accounting, human resources, etc.)? What are the difficulties or limitations for implementing PERT and CRM in the organization? Operations are a key functional area in an organization. Irrespective of the activities and the type of business every organization has few important activities to perform.

This enco

mpasses operations, marketing, finance and human resources management. Operations pertain to managing the conversion process in an organization. The marketing function is concerned with understanding the requirements of the customers cresting a demand for the products and services and satisfying the customer requirements by delivering the right product and services to the customers at the right time.

In order to perform the various activities pertaining to operations and marketing finance is needed for tapping the market for funds and managing the working capital.

These activities constitute the finance function. Every organization employs a number of people with varied skills background and work requirements. Managing the workforce

and dressing a host of issues related to them is called human resources management. Wrench these four form the basic functions of any organization The basic functions of an organization. The four functions have mutual interactions between them.

The decisions taken in each of these functional areas could form an important input in another functional area.

Typically, organizations begin their yearly plan with the marketing function of procurement planning and all these lead to certain estimate of the funds required. This forms an important input for the finance function. Weigh planning has such a sequence of information flows and interactions at the time of executions interactions are even more.

The HARM function influences the productive capacity of manpower available in real time the actual production of gods influences the marketing activity to be undertaken and the quantum and timing of funds available from sales. Hence project management influences every department in an organization.

It is difficult to implement PERT because it is a product industry and as such Pert is normally suited to a service industry of where there are many projects taking off Walter being armorial a goods industry does not require PERT. Customer Relationship management is a though study by the organization of the customer behavior and relationship. Walter's customer base is so huge that it seems impossible to maintain a CRM of that size.

Furthermore the customer is from varied backgrounds and Walter will not have any use for this. It becomes very expensive to initialize something like this for the size of Walter.

Project 3

At the Hard Rock Cafe, like many organizations, project management is a key planning tool. With Hard Rocks constant

growth in hotels and cafes, remodeling of existing apes, scheduling for Hard Rock Live concert and event venues, and planning the annual Rockiest, managers rely on project management techniques and software to maintain schedule and budget performance. "Without Microsoft Project," says Hard Rock Vice-President Chris Topmast, "there is no way to keep so many people on the same page. " Topmast is in charge of the Rockiest event, which is attended by well over 100,000 enthusiastic fans.

The challenge is pulling it off within a tight 9-month planning horizon. As the event approaches, Topmast devotes greater energy to its activities. For the first 3 months, Topmast updates his MS Project charts monthly. Then at the 6-month mark, he updates his progress weekly.

At the 9- month mark, he checks and corrects his schedule twice a week. Early in the project management breakdown structure, or WEBS):t talent booking, ticketing, marketing/PR, online promotion, television, show production, travel, sponsorships, operations, and merchandising. Using a WEBS, each of these is further divided into a series of subtasks.

The following table identifies 26 of the major activities and subjectivists, their immediate predecessors, and time estimates. Topmast enters all of these into the MS Project software.

Topmast alters the MS Project document and the time line as the project progresses. "It's okay to change it as long as you keep on track," he states. The day of the rock concert itself is not the end of the project planning. "It's nothing but surprises. A band not being able to get to the venue because of traffic Jams is a surprise, but an 'anticipated' surprise.

We had a helicopter on stand-by ready to fly the

band in," says Topmast.

On completion of Rockiest in July, Topmast and his team have a 3-month reprieve before starting the project planning process again. Please turn in a paper of one to two pages (page counting does not include cover and reference list) discussing the following questions, 1 . Identify the critical path and its activities for Rockiest. How long does the project take? Activity time Early Start Early Finish Late Start Late Finish Slack Project 7 3 10 18 11 25 27 14 16 20 24 28 12 26 19 13 17 The critical path A-D-E-F-G-O The project completion time is 34 weeks. .

Identify some major challenges a project manager faces in events such as this one. To plan thoroughly all aspects of the project, soliciting the active involvement of al functional areas involved, in order to obtain and maintain a realistic plan that satisfies their commitment for performance. To control the basic technical definition of the project, ensuring that "technical" versus "cost" trade-offs determine the specific areas where optimization is necessary. To lead the people and organizations assigned to the project at any given point in time.

Strong positive leadership must be exercised in order to keep the many disparate elements moving in the same direction in a co-operative. To monitor performance, costs and efficiency of all elements of the project and the reject as a whole, exercising Judgment and leadership in determining the causes of problems and facilitating solutions To complete the project on schedule and within costs, these being the overall standard by which performance of the project manager is evaluated.

Project 4 Global firms like Regal Marine know that

the basis for an organization's existence is the good or service it provides society. Great products are the keys to success. With hundreds of competitors in the boat business, Regal Marine must work to differentiate itself from the flock. Regal continuously introduces innovative, high- laity new boats. Its differentiation strategy is currently reflected in a product line consisting of 22 models. But why must Regal Marine constantly worry about designing new boats? The answer is that every product has a life cycle.

Products are born.

They live and they die. As Figure 5. 1 shows, a product's life cycle can be divided into four phases: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Figure 5. 2 shows the four life cycle stages and the relationship of product sales, costs, and profit over the life cycle of a product.

When Regal is developing a new model boat, it typically has a negative cash flow. If the boat is successful, those losses may Regal boat is three to five years. To maintain this stream of innovative new products, Regal constantly seeks design input from customers, dealers, and consultants.

Design ideas rapidly find themselves in Regales styling studio, where Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology speeds the development process.

A Regal design engineer can start with a rough sketch or even just an idea and use the graphic display power of CAD as a drafting board to construct the geometry of the new boat. The CAD system helps the designer determine engineering data such as the strength, dimensions, or weight. It also allows the designer to be sure all parts will fit together. Existing boat designs are always evolving as the company tries to stay

stylish and competitive.

Moreover, with life cycles so short, a steady stream of new products is required. A few years ago, the new product was the 3-passenger $11,000 Rush, a small, but powerful boat capable of pulling a water-skier. The next year, it was a 20-foot inboard-outboard performance boat with so many innovations that it won prize after prize in the industry. Then it was a redesigned 42-foot Commodore that sleeps six in luxury staterooms. With all these models and innovations, Regal designers and production personnel are under pressure to respond quickly.

By getting key suppliers on board early and urging them to participate at the design stage, Regal improves both innovations and quality while speeding product development.

Regal finds that the sooner it brings suppliers on board, the faster it can bring new boats to the market. The first stage in actual production is the creation of the "plug," a foam-based carving used to make the molds for fiberglass hulls and decks. Specifications from the CAD system drive the carving process. Once the plug is carved, the permanent molds for each new hull and deck design are formed.