RESOURCE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

PART 1

Answer any one question from Part 1. Your answer for a question (including subparts) in this part may be around 1000 to 2000 words. In addition, you can include representative diagrams/ figures and tables (if so relevant).

[Hint: You may study various online journals from library, identify relevant research papers/ reports; also you may consider hypothetical or practical contexts & data e.g. a specific role in relevant project-based or manufacturing industry - to prepare your answers including diagrams, discussions and conclusions]

1. You are responsible to design the facility layout for: (i) a precast panel manufacturing unit OR (ii) automobile remanufacturing unit in a suburb area near a large metropolitan city. Hint: you shall choose either (i) or (ii) for your answer.
From the resource management perspectives for (a) one-off or less routine operations; and (b) routine or frequent operations, outline your layout design with supporting justifications and discussions.

2. You are responsible for obsolescence mitigation in a large international organisation. Prepare a set of recommendations to your top management - i.e. with respect to (a) stock of volatile materials, (b) equipment spare parts and (c) costly equipment.

3. Assume that you are working in an international organization which undertakes major metro rail and other infrastructure projects in Australia, Asia and Europe. As a part of your Australia division's improvement initiative, you are assigned to prepare detailed report on resource planning and management aspects for any two of the following:
a. Reliability centered maintenance management of key equipment resources (you may assume one particular equipment);
b. Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) as an alternate material choice
c. Employing drones in project delivery OR asset management (you shall answer either project delivery OR asset management aspect)
d. Use of autonomous (driverless) vehicles in large construction projects OR mining industry

PART 2

Answer any one question from Part 2. Your answer may include relevant representative diagrams/ figures and tables.
1. After recent floods in Queensland, the road and rail infrastructure in some parts of the region have been significantly damaged. Assume that you are a local construction contractor who obtained a subcontract for repairing the bridges in this affected region. The AON (i.e. ‘activity on node') network for the project is shown in the Figure. Specific details of resource requirements for various activities of this subcontract project are given in the Table.

Figure: AON Network Diagram for the project

Table: Activity details and resource information

You are required to:
(i) Allocate requisite resources for all activities in this projects;
(ii) Carry our resource leveling and compare/ discuss options;
(iii) Discuss your strategies for allocating and levelling multiple resources (including expendable and non-expendable categories)
(iv) Provide your suggestions regarding resource optimisation

2. Assume that you are project manager of a renovation project and following information regarding this project are available:

You are required to calculate expected time and variance for each activity in this project and thereby:

(i) Determine expected completion time for this renovation project

(ii) Determine the probability that the project will finish at least 1 day late

(b) In an audit monitoring of a 8 billion dollars infrastructure development project, the observation at a particular instance indicates that the project has been 78% complete and the corresponding "To Complete Performance Index" (TCPI) is 1.295. You are required to appraise the situation and briefly discuss your strategies from project control perspectives.

3. Your project team in XYZ gold mine was assigned to sink a 2.5 kilometers deep ventilation shaft and excavating space for a station at the bottom. The plan was to sink the shaft within 24 months at a cost of $10,000 per meter of shaft depth. For the station at the bottom, 30,000 cubic meters of rock would have to be excavated within 3 months at a cost of $110 per cubic meters. The plan assumed a uniform earned value over time. After the work had begun, the scope of the project was changed to include excavation for a new station halfway down the shaft (as shown in figure below) with a volume of 20,000 cubic meters.

It was agreed that the additional work would have to be done at the same excavation rate as the bottom station, but since removal of the rock required hoisting only 1500 meters instead of 2.5 kilometers for the bottom station, the team agreed on the cost of $80 per cubic meters for the new station. Since limited working space and available resources would delimit the amount of work that could be done simultaneously, everyone agreed that the new station would delay the sinking of the shaft. After 15 months, the shaft had reached a depth of 1800 meters below surface and excavation for the halfway station was completed. The actual cost at this time was 14 million dollars, which was more than was budgeted for the period. This provoked a cash-flow issue at that stage and your executive management requested an earned value report. Information on the relative amounts of time spent on excavating the new station and sinking the shaft was not available.

(i) Calculate cost variance, schedule variance, time variance, and critical ratio

(ii) Prepare a graph showing initial plan and the changed plan and indicate earned value and actual cost after 15 months.

(iii) Regarding the cash-flow problem that was aggravated by the high rate of spending, discuss the desirability of performing projects faster than planned.