Assignment No.

5
1. Project Title: Project Management Challenges & Solutions,
IMAGINARY MOTION PICTURES- S is for Save the Planet: A How
to be Green Alphabet.
2. Author: Abhiram Sridhara

3. My Class code: EM636

4. Date: August 9th,2015
5. My eLearning Pack ID- EM 636-Summer-2015-34-28
6. Collaborative companies:
1. Pdn- Ultimate experience in photography, Filmmaking and
Digital Imaging.
2. HAIMER
3. Canon
4. Bell-Howell.
Contents:

Introduction and Objectives

Methodologies
Main Body
Part 0: Resubmit all the assignments
Part 1: Discussion paper on chapters 6 & 7
Part 2: Cost calculations & methods

Part 3: Video Conferencing

Social Networking
Summary
Further work needed
References
Grade your own Assignment

Introduction and Objectives of the Project:

IMAGINARY MOTION PICTURES is a movie production company with a
new project titled S is for Save the Planet: A How to be Green
Alphabet. A documentary based on the book which goes by the same
name. The documentary plot goes as the following:
Did you know Americans generate nearly 250 million tons of trash
each year? Or that it takes hundreds of years for a polystyrene cup to
decompose? Mankind's negative impact on Mother Earth is tremendous
and daily bad news can make it feel overwhelming. But all is not lost! S
is for Save the Planet: A How-to-Be-Green Alphabet details the many
environmental issues we face and then suggests easy-to-take actions
that anyone can do. From the particulars of vermicomposting and
xeriscaping, to the three R's of responsible waste management, young
people learn how they can be a force of nature in protecting the earth
for generations to come.
My collaborating companies are Bell & Howell, Pdn, Canon and HAIMER.
The project plan has 3 phases following the Quality based Project
Management features:
Phase 1: Pre-Production
Phase 2: Documentary shooting/on-set
Phase 3: Post-Production
Pre-Production: Planning the whole documentary. Script-What to show,
What not to show, The content framework, Estimated budget,
Recruiting Cast & Crew, Recruiting Technical Department, Collaborating
with other companies, Deciding on shooting spots, Information on
shooting spots and taking necessary permissions for the shoots, Work
on scheduling the total shoot and finally re-check the whole process
yet again and make a final commitment with everything.

Documentary shooting: Working according to the plan and schedule

drawn from the Pre-Production and keep the shoot going according to
plan. Re-check after each and every shot or frame and keeping in mind
What exactly we are trying to portray and how we are portraying?
Estimating costs and make necessary changes in the shoot plans to
meet the necessary expectations.
Post-Production: Once done with the shooting, Estimate the production
costs of the overall documentary. Working with the technical
departments-Editing, sound design etc. Marketing the documentary
and advertising. Selling the documentary to buyers and sponsors.
Releasing the documentary.
In a highly advanced world, people have started looking for products
which can meet their requirements and are SUSTAINABLY GREEN. This
is the goal of my company and the reason that we analyze the
requirements of the customers and also keep improving the GREEN
technology of our products.
Customer requirements and feedback are our first priority to adjust our
products and take the required actions for achieving GREEN
SUSTAINABILITY. We need to do the Survey from the customers to know
what kinds of products they desire before we develop them and what
functions should it fulfill. Customer satisfaction is our main agenda. To
achieve Sustainability in the product with respect to Design and
Manufacturing our product is based on TQM.
In our organization we would essentially focus on maintaining a healthy
Work environment and having several extracurricular activities for our
employees which make them feel good at work and motivate them to
achieve desired results. We also focus on Material and Waste
Recycling. Our product is based on ISO 9001:2008, production
processes and green sustainable included. We collaborate with four
other companies as stated in assignment 0 and assignment1.
PFRA is a Team Oriented Problem Solving (TOPS) method which is
aimed at minimizing dissatisfaction, and financial loss for process
related failure risks. The main purpose of this project is to introduce
Process Failure Risk Analysis (PFRA) method and software tool which
produces a combination with the real-world and R&D challenges. The
approach is done by applying process modelling, requirement analysis
and risk analysis as an integrated approach to problem solving. Using

this we will focus on identifying the problems of the company process

and the risks associated with it. Our previously demonstrated
methodologies will work hands on with this project and help us in
meeting our objectives. Using the PFRA spread sheet software tool, we
can detect the problems and find out the risks associated with it. These
solutions will help the companies to solve their existing problems which
in turn will reduce loss and bring profit to the company.
A brief description of the methodologies:
We will be using the CIMpgr method developed by Paul G. Ranky which
systematically illustrates the object to object relationships, their
functions and entities. The diagrams are arranged in such a way that it
depicts a parent child relation. This method is very efficient in
describing the whole process in which a company manufactures a
product and it also reduces waste.
Quality Control, software requirements, equipment and a lot of other
aspects of maintaining and running large scale operations can be
demonstrated and run efficiently through such a planning process. This
model is integrated with Six Sigma quality method as well as ISO
9000:2009 principles. By using CIMpgr we are aware of defined input
and defined output. The CIMpgr Method provides a set of integrated
methods and tools and technologies for:

Analyzing
Specifying
Designing
Implementing/integrating
Testing/validating
Operating
Maintaining/supporting &

Project managing enterprise modeling development.

A Project Lifecycle Matrix, Building Information Modeling (BIM),
Integrated Project Delivery are other methodologies.
We will be implementing Process Failure Risk Analysis (PFRA) method
and software tool during the planning stages of a process. PFRA is
a Team Oriented Problem Solving (TOPS) method which is aimed at
minimizing dissatisfaction and financial loss for process related failure

risks. The seven key aspects of our generic methodology which must
be followed before beginning to work on any process failure risk study
with our PFRA Tool are as follows:
1. Defining the scope, function and purpose of the system or subsystem, or any product, or process design to be analyzed.
2. Identifying the potential risks and failure modes and their
effects by applying the PFRA technique during the process, and
creating, or analyzing the existing BOM (Bill of Material) file. The
PFRA will help the team to gradually deepen the product, process
or system design analysis and locate all potential failures at the
earliest possible stage
3. Prioritize potential failures by ranking the critical quality, cost,
and safety related faults and eliminate them by the crossfunctional team as early as possible.
4. The cases involving high risk of potential failures must be
identified, selected and managed by devising an immediate
control plan to get the processes in control by following our basic
TQM principles.
5. Observe and learn by creating living knowledge-managed
document that needs to be kept up-to-date for each system or
product/process design, PFRA / DFRA. It should not be
retrospective, but kept as a valuable source of information for
current, as well as for future products.
6. Documenting the process is an important aspect, as the team
goes along, and store the PFRA / DFRA contained information in a
widely accessible format (preferably, both electronically, such as
our spreadsheet and optionally on paper based media) for the
current as well as for future Teams.
7. Enter the values into the PFRA / DFRA spreadsheet on a relative
scale, determined by the local PFRA / DFRA Team, as well as by
the local, customized standards they follow.
The rating rules are regarding:
1. Severity
2. Detection
3. Occurrence
The product with these rating values, gives a number called the risk
priority number [RPN] which can be used as a measure of the degree
of failure risk.

The severity rating uses a scale from 1 to 10, where the lower rating is
corresponds to no effect on specified process or product performance
and higher rating corresponds to hazardous effects specified process or
product performance. Here a goal is achieving a lower rating.
The detection rating uses a scale from 1 to 10, where the lower rating
is corresponds to easily detecting process or product performance
failure and higher rating corresponds to impossibly detecting process
or product performance. Thus, the goal is achieving lower rating.
The occurrence rating uses the scale from 1 to 10, where the lower
rating is corresponds to lower failure rate i.e. less than 1 in 500,000 for
specified process or product performance and higher rating
corresponds to higher failure rate greater than 1 in 3 for specified
process or product performance. Also, the goal here is to achieve
low rating.
The Main Body of the project:
Part 0: Resubmitting all Assignments:
Assignment 0:
Professors comments: For your submission, I can give you 10/10. No
further comments.
New Link: http://abhiramsridharaem636.weebly.com/assignment-0.html
Assignment 1:
Professors comments: I can give you the following grade: 8/10
Suggestions for improvements: sorry, there are some syntax and
semantic errors in your diagrams / models. Please improve those.
New Link: http://abhiramsridharaem636.weebly.com/assignment-1.html
Assignment 2:
Professors comments: I can give you the following grade: 10/10.
New Link: http://abhiramsridharaem636.weebly.com/assignment-2.html
Midterm A & Midterm B:
Professors comments: Midterm (max. 20/20): Your grade: 2 x 20/20.

New Link for Midterm A:

http://abhiramsridharaem636.weebly.com/midterm--a.html
New Link for Midterm B:
http://abhiramsridharaem636.weebly.com/midterm--b.html

Assignment 3:
Professors comments: Your grade: 10/10.
New Link: http://abhiramsridharaem636.weebly.com/assignment-3.html
Assignment 4:
Professors comments: Not yet Graded.
Part 1:
Chapter 6: The principle is simple: you have to be able to market your
project and your project management service well to get the
sponsorship you need, to design it, to implement it, and then to sell
your next project idea.
In this Chapter we address the importance of marketing strategies, in
integration with project management, within a customer and total
quality focused, complex, global business environment.
Customer Focused Engineering and Project Management
Finding out, and then capturing what customers want, need, desire
and truly require is essential for every business to survive and
prosper.
Furthermore, getting information about new products and/ or services
across a customer base is one of the greatest engineering
management, and project management challenges of mankind.
Since information, presented in a clear and meaningful manner is the
key to progress, an organizations success often depends on its ability
to communicate.
Our method and tool, presented in this 3D multimedia eBook program
helps project managers, marketing and sales engineers, designers and
manufacturers, civil engineers and construction managers, and even

after sales support and maintenance engineers, and IT experts winning

new customers.
National and international competition forces engineering managers,
marketing engineers, designers, manufacturers, de-manufacturers, IT
engineers, and project managers to continuously innovate, collaborate
and make their product / process design and manufacturing processes
market driven.
This means that marketing and sales departments have to find out
what their customer needs, wants, desires and requirements are, and
then explain and sell their increasingly more complex products to an
increasingly more educated and globally distributed, Internet-ready
customer base at a competitive price, and in a short time.
This is a major engineering management effort, therefore we have to
continuously learn about new internal and external, (including global)
customer / user needs, because this drives the innovative process,
then create, and simultaneously market new products and / or
services.
On the top of all this the Internet is changing everything. Many
companies are selling their products, and services, including project
management tools and services, directly to well inform global
customers over the web 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Simultaneously the time to market is rapidly shrinking, and the
appetite for new products and services is growing, therefore keeping
projects under control, in terms of their quality goals, schedule and
budget, is extremely important.
The question is who will find out what the customers want, need, and
require, and then who will satisfy these requirements first?
Our Solution: The Virtual Product Demo in 3D with Powerful
Analytical tools
We have several methods and tools to make sure, that you and your
business will thrive. These methods and tools are generic, meaning,
that they can be applied literally to any system, or business in any
country.

The core idea, is that we integrate process modeling, requirements

analysis and risk analysis, embedded into a total quality infrastructure,
with several additional methods and tools.
In other words, our extended QFD (Quality Function Deployment) and
our CORA Tool (Component Oriented Requirements Analysis), coupled
with our object-oriented Process Modeling methods and tools (CIMpgr),
with our Process Failure Risk Analysis Tools (DFRA and PFRA), with our
3D interactive Virtual Product Demonstrators, and other optional tools,
such as the Extended-Taguchi Calculator, TQM, Six-sigma and others,
offer a very powerful set of tools for project managers, engineering
managers, IT and other experts. This integrated methodology and
toolset can be used as a vehicle to drive a market driven engineering
process that is truly customer focused.
In order to grasp this vast amount of knowledge, we follow an
interactive multimedia, open source, 3DVR web enabled approach, that
promotes the fact that Case Based Learning and Case Based Marketing
go hand-in-hand, and electronically support a variety of fields and
collaborative interests.
Following our approach, customer needs, expectations, desires, wants
and requirements are analyzed following an analytical approach, and
then the results are used for product / process / service system design,
quality and process specifications.
To summarize, our modern, market-driven, integrated product and
process (including service) design and marketing approach enables the
following:
Marketing, project management, and sales engineers can capture
customer needs, and demonstrate their products in an interactive
and non-linear fashion. (Remember those marketing CDs/ DVDs
that you cannot stop... and they just tell the story they want to
hammer into you, versus what you are really interested in and
you cannot stop them and jump somewhere else...frustrated?
Well, our solution is web-browser readable, interactive
multimedia with high quality interactive videos and optional
3DVR (3 dimensional virtual reality) objects that you can
interrogate. Often we add 360 degree panoramic virtual tours
that are fascinating and often incredible, because they link 3D
worlds together, and you can interactively navigate in these

worlds. The purpose of this method is to explain complex

environments in an effective way.
Potential customers, and project managers can learn about
products, processes, services, and systems and potential buyers
can review them in-depth.
Technicians and operators can learn about processes and
products, including potential process failure modes, before the
product / process, or service is designed.
Marketing engineers can focus on the best probable deals, put all
their resources and prioritize them using seamlessly shared
marketing information in interactive 3DVR multimedia format
across a global sales team.
Engineering managers and project managers can focus on the
best probable outcomes, in terms of delivering the project with a
great success, on time and within budget.
Undergraduate and graduate engineering, management and
computer science students can understand and learn from
integrated product and process / service design issues by
enjoying interactive, real cases presented by real experts, to
whom they can actually e-mail and feedback their comments.
Product design and manufacturing engineers, system integrators,
marketing and sales engineers, and project managers can
analyze and learn innovation, collaborative design, system
integration, maintenance, globally collaborative project
management, and other challenges that the virtual
demonstration of such products, processes and services can
collect, as well as
Allow manufacturers/ marketing and sales engineers to create
sophisticated customized presentations and Virtual Product
Demonstrations that can be built easily, and can be customized
in a very short time. This will enable them to close deals quicker
and simultaneously increase customer satisfaction.
As a result, the competitive advantage gained is enormous
because for a company empowered with the VPD (Virtual Product
Demonstrator) tool-set the time it will take to demonstrate and
market a new product on the Internet, or via CD-ROMs and DVDs

will collapse to that of the fraction it takes and costs without it.
This will result in retaining satisfied customers, who can become
virtual members of the next product design team, or even
community.
Furthermore with the added product intelligence gathered from
customers, and potential customers, innovation will accelerate and
designs and services will improve because everybody will learn from
the focused and targeted market intelligence feedback.
A Hi-tech Marketing Strategy
In terms of marketing your advanced, hi-tech product, process or even
disassembly service, consider that the major opportunities for gaining
competitive advantage will have their roots in one or more of the
following major changes in the way we design and manufacture goods
and offer services already, or in the (near) future:
1. Internationalization and globalization: overseas markets and
global enterprises have/ will have a major influence on everything
we do, because fundamentally every human being has the right
to continuously improve their living conditions, a major human
energy and driving force.
2. The continuously changing customer requirements, sales and
service networks will have a major effect on all of us. (The
Internet is already a major opportunity, as well as a challenge to
competitors!) This is why it is essential to inform and involve
potential customers by taking them through virtual product and
factory tours that have on-line feedback opportunities over the
web (as it is the case with this program).
3. Competitiveness through quality, consistency, leanness, agility,
and partnerships is and will increasingly be key. There is literally
no company in the world that can research, develop, manufacture
and maintain all of its product components, sub-systems, and
services, therefore companies have to become increasingly
competent systems integrators and value added re-sellers. Note,
thatour CORA Tool can identify your position in a competitive
world, including indicators where you should improve.
4. The importance of enthusiastic people who have driven and skills,
motivation, leadership skills, teamwork interest, learning skills,

knowledge and innovation cannot be underestimated in our

Internet-linked interactive multimedia world, in which one can
invent and create a product and/or service at his or her desk and
sell it 'anywhere and anytime' in the world!
5. Clearly the 21st Century is the beginning of the 'information age'
integrated with collaborating 'knowledge societies' and real-time
operated business. Note, that one of the major benefits of our
Virtual Product Demo approach is that the potential customer can
become part of the design and even the sales team over the
web! Consider the speed at which you can get valuable project
management, marketing, and other feedback; not to mention the
costs savings...
6. The responsiveness to environmental concerns and regulations
that has gained strong ground in Europe (notably the ISO 14000x
environmental standard, the 'computer take-back' movement,
and others) is spreading to the rest of the world, creating new
business opportunities, more environmentally conscious design
and manufacturing practices, and simultaneously putting
pressure on some existing, polluting processes and entire
industries. Global warming is a real threat, not to mention
polluted fish, air, water, and many other environmental concerns,
that are outside the main scope of this publication, nevertheless
affect all of us, and all of our projects, whether we like it or not...
7. The influence of information technology and communications will
be very significant, most importantly the Internet and related
interactive multimedia and 3DVR (three dimensional virtual
reality) web and CD /DVD / server / CLOUD delivered interactive
marketing and learning opportunities, such as Virtual Product
Demos, virtual factory tours, the 'anything, anywhere, anytime'
concepts, e-commerce for harvested products, services and even
electronic banking, distance and on-line education, maintenance,
and many others.
8. Now imagine the positive aspects of transforming your huge data
burden into strategic advantage, dramatically reducing the time
to market complex products that the customer base finds difficult
to understand, automate feedback and collaborative design/
customer communication over the web, and many others... This
program is about all these exciting opportunities, and more!

9. Last, but not least, visibility to your supply chain is important. You
are simultaneously a customer as well as a supplier in an ecommerce network. Break organizational barriers and share
information about business activities on a close to real-time basis.
Using the gained accurate data, turn it into information and
manage by metrics (this is a fundamental industrial engineering,
and engineering management principle). Encourage fast and
collaborative decision-making in all projects, as a manager, as
well as a team member; you have all the reliable information
now, use it positively!
Chapter 7: The principle is simple: A project document must be
atraceable, quality record that offers a technically and financially
accurate, as well as legally binding information of all key aspects of the
project, for current and future use.
In this Chapter we address the importance of quality project
documentation and presentation methods, as part of quality
management, within a customer focused, complex, global business
environment, in which key roles, team members, managers,
technology, resources, and opportunities change dynamically.
Note, that we discuss these topics in such a way, that they are
meaningful to both our student, as well as our professional
communities.
Introduction
Our technical world is complex and the knowledge workers are
increasingly mobile and global. A team that has started to work on a
project might not stay together until the completion of the project. New
interests, assignments and forces control the team's activities,
therefore it is essential that they document their work professionally.
The obvious choice is a logical, object oriented approach, that is
essential not only because of technical and management reasons, but
also very useful because it supports Total Quality traceability principles
(ref. the international ISO 9000x quality standards).
Following object oriented documentation rules this section was written
as a guide, therefore please feel free to modify it to suite your needs
and method of documenting assignments, mini-projects, software and
other projects and presentations for Case Based Learning and Case

Based Marketing using the Virtual Product Demo (and other methods)
in academia as well as in industry.
How Does Our Generic Engineering Problem Solving Method
Help in Documenting Projects?
Our proposed methodology for object oriented documentation basically
follows the best engineering and academic problem solving practices
for creating new products and services, final year, as well as graduate
or post-graduate level thesis projects. It suggests the following
activities, or processes with continuous quality and requirements
feedback-loops:
10.

Research and analyze the needs, for all key processes.

11.

Develop a comprehensive object oriented system model.

12.
Collect and review your data. Validate your data, based on
available resources including feedback from experts, academic
tutors, trustworthy textbooks, research articles, trade
publications, the Internet, and other reliable sources.
13.
Create a pilot system, a prototype that you can realistically
implement, validate, and refine.
14.
Create the full system as specified by your customer(s)/
sponsor(s).
15.

Support, maintain and educate all parties involved.

16.
Knowledge-mine what you have done for continuously
improving on your performance in the future.
In more detail, the process by which you can achieve the above
outlined and expected results can be as follows:
1. Requirements analysis: What does the customer want? How can
we satisfy this need at the highest quality and minimum cost?
What are the engineering solutions for satisfying customer
needs? How does our competition do?
2. Object oriented system analysis. (This is the 'as is' system
scenario).
3. Object oriented system design. (This is the 'to be' system
scenario).

4. Optional small scale test phase implementation feedback loop of

the most important aspects and processes. (This is basically a
prototype to be demonstrated to selected customers).
5. System design refinement feedback loop. (Based on feedback
you should refine and improve your design/ system).
6. Full test phase implementation feedback loop to all key aspects
and processes.
7. System design completion.
8. Implementation and system integration.
9. Final documentation (Prepare your documentation on the way
preferably using interactive multimedia and on-line Internet
technology. This will help you to satisfy customers as well as to
save if you need to update your documentation).
10.
Subject to contract, continuous system maintenance and
support.
11.
System administration support and optional formal
education at all levels to all involved.
12.
The identification of future R&D and other collaborative/
sales opportunities.
Project Team Assignment Form
This form is important, since it documents who has done the job,
therefore fill in the following:
Assignment/ Document/ Project Title:
Team Name:
Team Members:
Course/ Project Code:
Date of Submission:
Professor / Manager (for whom this report was created):
Note that we expect ideally three, maximum five members in a team,
nevertheless due to circumstances, if you must have more, just add

the names above. Also note, that in industry teams can be much
larger.
Note that you are encouraged to perform all tasks as part of a team,
nevertheless your performance will have to be individually assessed!
This is why it is vital that you specify what aspects of the project you
have tackled.
Also note, that it is common to have overlaps of activities between
team members, nevertheless it is considered to be unfair to state
something like this: 'All activities relating to this project have been
accomplished by all members of the team on an equal basis'.
This clearly illustrates the lack of team management within the team,
as well as very likely indicates to the experienced academic, or
industrial management eyes that one or perhaps only a few members
of the team done the entire work.
Team Reporting Rules
The basic process during which you will arrive to a professional project
document and report is as follows:
The identification, analysis and definition of the challenge, or in
other words the requirement, or problem. In most cases you are
looking for identifying and analyzing objects and processes first
to establish the 'as is' scenario, or system.
When you find the objects, immediately analyze their behavior
(i.e. the processes they perform). This will help you to see most of
the 'gray donkeys in the fog'.
Idea generation (so that you have a wide decision space to
navigate within and you understand your boundaries).
Design the new system with its objects, classes and relationships.
Decision making, most importantly by navigating through objects
and their classes, and their behavior throughout the project.
Object oriented, self-contained, well designed quality
documentation, intermediate and/ or final report writing and
presentation.
Feedback loops and iterative improvements throughout the entire
process within and/or outside the team for supporting the team.

The Team Project Report Document, submitted to your instructor (or

manager, or team mates) at various stages of your project should be
used as the basis for your final documentation. Since in most cases
you are asked to put together a professional team presentation at the
end of each module, or phase of each project, we strongly recommend
that you keep these reports in an electronic format.
Furthermore, as a basic principle we strongly recommend that you put
your thoughts together as if they were objects (and / or components)
that eventually have to perform a task as an integrated system.
(Object oriented thinking will be beneficial throughout your efforts
when you analyze, develop, implement, validate, integrate, document,
disassemble, maintain, etc. your work).
When documenting electronically a simple word processing tool with
some inserted images, line diagrams and graphics is adequate,
however there are some better tools, such as web-authoring tool that
enable you to create hyper links between text, images and even sound
and digital video objects.
The concept of hyper-linking is very useful, and since the tendency is
to put all documents on-line on the web, or the company intranet, the
earlier you learn this method and become experienced actually doing it
every day, the better!
Before guiding you in more detail, let us explain why you need to pay
attention to creating quality reports and document your own, or your
team's work in a professional way:
Notes and accurately recorded data that can be turned into
information; reasoned upon can be turned into knowledge and
decisions. (Obviously inaccurate data can spell disaster, therefore
data validation, as well as data integrity is essential!)
Documentation is a method of communicating with parties that
did not experience the actual demonstration, experiment, or
other events.
Insurance companies and various legal bodies require
professional documentation standards to establish accurate facts.
This is true for engineering and other systems too.
Your thoughts are organized as you write documents. In other
words, the document writing process structures your mind and

helps you to focus, to decide upon contents, priorities, structure,

levels and other major issues.
Documents can be used for quality assurance and/or quality
improvement purposes. (There is no perfect document, including
this one... nevertheless you can continuously improve it and
achieve a desired level of perfection. We are all lifelong learners
travelling on the 'road of perfection'...).
Documents can be used for further research, for data mining and
distributed project control and management in many areas.
In order to guide you to work as an integrated team (you probably
remember the saying: "one for all, all for one") please find herewith the
basic rules of the report writing activity:
Each time you submit a team project report your instructor (or
manager, and/ or your team members) will evaluate your
performance. Make sure that you understand the objectives of
the project as well as your instructor's/ team member's
comments, concerns and requests, and that you try to address
each of them at the first time you prepare the report as well as at
the next level of submission. This is important even if you
disagree with them.
As you carry on with your documentation work, please do not
delete previous sections, but keep them so your team can see a
record of previous entries, previous strengths and suggestions for
improvement. This is an important total quality traceability issue
that could be useful if the team decides to return to a previously
abandoned thought process or solution.
Each team's entry should include a short narrative describing the
activities of your group, a list of present strengths of your team,
and a list of suggestions for improvement.
Remember to include specific, measured and/or calculated data,
results with examples, including small sketches or drawings, or
photos (taken with your digital camera), or software code, URLs,
etc. to support the statements you make in the report.
If you list novel strengths, cite specific examples of how your
team has demonstrated these strengths.

 If you list suggestions for improvement, list specific reasons why

your team believes it is important to make these improvements.
Remember that you are trying to demonstrate your
understanding of effective team performance so that you may
wish to also include descriptions of elements that encourage
effective teamwork.
Defining the Situation. Analyze and Describe the 'as is' System
As an executive summary this section should be approximately half a
page long.
For our purposes we suggest to document the "as is" system well,
using a good object oriented process modeling method. Such
documents often take 10 or more even 20 to 30 pages/ screens,
nevertheless can be used as an important reference and benchmark
when management needs to assess the benefits of the new system.
Defining the situation means documenting the "as is" system, including
the list of conditions that you can observe and record of your objects at
the time you start your experiment, your investigation, your study of
the system, the environment, the process, the machine, etc., as you
see it.
When creating the "as is" model always find the objects first, identify
their attributes and behavior. Identify each of them by (typically)
answering the following questions:
Who?
What?
When?
Where?
Why?
How?
This section should be more than a record of the obvious facts. These
are some suggestions of the way you can achieve this:
Probe into the situation, or the "as is" system. Get at more than
the facts on the surface. (Think of the way the various objects

behave and link, or don't as a system you have to understand,

model, and improve).
Focus on the importance of the situation, opportunities for
outstanding performance, or very poor performance, even faults
in the existing system, and challenges to overcome. Always try to
locate the objects that are responsible for the undesired behavior
of the system. (Often such objects are embedded, making this
investigation difficult).
Be sure that you have read the instructions well in the relevant
assignment, or Task Description (or syllabus, if it is a course
assignment), or Specification and Problem Statement, if it is an
industrial/ professional job. (You'll be amazed how many mistakes
are made because of the lack of understanding what needs to be
done..., or even sometimes because of the lack of accurate
definition of what needs to be accomplished!)
Focus on the creative design aspects of objects and processes
(i.e. how you get there to solve the outlined challenges) and
make suggestions for implementing them. This section will be
graded (or appraised by your management in industry) based on
how well you describe the problem you are faced with. (Note, that
only textbooks describe the problem accurately. In the real-world
you have to start by describing and defining the problem first,
then finding the appropriate methods, collecting reliable data
(not easy!), abstracting and validating your decision space, your
data and methods, and then concluding your results.)
Requirements Analysis. Stating the Goal. Design and Describe
your 'To Be' System
This section should be approximately half a page or max. One page as
an executive summary, and often tens if not hundreds of pages as a
system design, using preferably an object oriented approach.
Your goal must be concise, but well thought-out and specific. These are
some suggestions on how to achieve this:
Identify the requirements accurately. As a result of your section
2.0 activities (above) you have a good model of the "as is"
system; it is time to think of what the true requirements are and

then change the current system. But first, you must state the
goal.
The statement of the goal should depend on your definition of the
requirements. (Note, that this is a good opportunity for
brainstorming in the team. You might want to get away and let
your minds "bubble" together...)
Create goal options, meaning that you consider several
alternative goal statements. (Note, that this is a good opportunity
for brainstorming in the team).
Select the most appropriate goal from these options. Your
requirements as well as your "as is" object oriented system model
will help you in doing so.
State why your team believes that the selected option is the most
appropriate goal statement for the "to be" system.

Generating IdeasThis section should be approximately half a page or

max. One page as an executive summary, but can be a few more
pages for a detailed team study.
This is where the real creative work begins. You are encouraged to
brainstorm ways of designing and engineering the system which will
meet the specifications as stated in your requirements/ goals.
Think of the idea generating process as having three parts:
Identify goal problems. This step involves analysis.
Create idea options. This step is the synthesis.
Select ideas. This is the evaluation step.
Go through these steps in an iterative fashion and work with as many
different ideas as you feel comfortable with. On average expect at
least three ideas to be competing for the 'winning' position.

Preparing and Presenting a Plan, an Object Oriented Design of

the "to be" SystemAs soon as you are at this stage, you are
definitely making good progress! Well done!

The plan, or design of your new baby, the "to be" system should follow
object oriented principles. This means that you will be able to compare
your 'as is' with your 'to be' system using the same methodology. This
will be beneficial when it comes to implementing, debugging, and
benchmarking, or when you need to change, update the system at a
later stage.
Some questions that you need to answer that will help you with this
process are as follows:
Which are the new objects? What is their relationship with the old
objects? How does this change effect the overall system
performance? What weaknesses do you see in each?
What options do you have now in terms of going through the
change process from 'as is' to 'to be?
Are there ways of synthesizing an implementation/ integration
plan out of the ideas generated?
Furthermore consider documenting/ presenting the following:
A physical description of your work by means of drawings, neat
sketches, software code, rapid prototypes, etc.
If you are dealing with software, think of object oriented process
plans and visual programming techniques. This means an objectby-object, process plan of how you plan to achieve your results.
(Who will be doing what and when? What resources will be
needed and when?).
A set of cost estimates to the best of your ability.
Some performance criteria and estimates to the best of your
ability. (What you think it will be able to do?)
Follow good multimedia presentation rules when communicating
your plan to your real/ virtual team members. Slide shows are the
past... use web-authoring tools with hyperlinks and 3DVR media if
possible.
It is a good idea to employ a quality project planning software tool in
combination with the object oriented system design plans. Such tools
will enable you to calculate important cash flow and other dynamically
changing resource/ time issues.

After having considered the goal, the selected ideas, constraints, and
potential problems, identify the best plan. Describe this plan in this
section of the document/ or presentation.
As with the previous sections, this section will probably be updated
more than once.
Implementation of the Selected PlanIn this section you have to
answer what problems are associated with the chosen plan. In order to
achieve this, analyze your chosen plan carefully. Carry out your plan,
and describe what actually happened.
This section of your report should have subsections as follows:
ChronologyState in this section of your report in detail who was
responsible for each aspect (object) of the work, and how long it took
the team to actually build the system.
If you continuously document your project electronically, following our
outlined object oriented plan, than this will be a relatively simple task.
Project CostThis section is where you record the actual costs of
materials, resources and time spent on developing your new project or
system.
An object oriented approach will help here too, because it lends itself
to ABC, or Activity Based Costing.
An activity could be an object, or processes that led to the creation of
the object, therefore the cost calculation becomes simpler and more
accurate, since it is part of your overall project documentation process
where all the required data is available.
Quality and Performance TestsYou must try out your product, or
device or experiment, or model. At this stage the predicted
performance of your objects and the system of integrated objects must
function according to the requirements. Following a truly concurrent
approach, when object design and its implementation and test go
hand-in-hand, the methodology you follow for testing is crucial.
As a rule of thumb, it is always a good idea to ask another team to do
the testing, since objective eyes can see what developers have taken
for granted. If there are any, try to use internationally accepted,
standard test methods.

In the document briefly justify and describe the tests that you have
used. Furthermore document the test results. (This is crucial if there
are questions and/or problems at a later stage!
Offshoring / Reshoring
At this point of our studies, as a truly exciting and relevant interactive
exercise, I would like to ask you to do a bit of research on an
offshoring / reshoring, and in particular the cost ($$$$!!!!) aspectsof
offshoring and reshoring . Then create a new case study (with your
own data; you can make up missing data) and fill in the Input page for
Total Cost of Ownership Estimator. Then, calculate and explain the
results. Please note, that this is interactive exercise is a VERY
IMPORTANT feature of your project management studies since it relates
to what is happening in the real world, with real professional
companies!
In relationship to the above, consider what MIT's Sloan School of
Management is stating:
In the last few years, there has been considerable discussion around
the need for manufacturing companies to reexamine the structure of
their global supply chains. In parallel, a growing number of global
companies are repatriating their manufacturing capabilities - moving
some production operations back to the US from overseas: Ford,
Caterpillar, GE, Apple and Foxconn, to name a few.
On-shoring Manufacturing Trends include the following:
The on-shoring trend has picked up pace not only because of job losses
in the US, but also because the economics that made off-shoring
attractive a decade ago have changed for a number of reasons:
High price of oil versus cheap natural gas available locally: a
combination of high transportation costs to ship from overseas
and lower manufacturing costs to produce in the US can
financially motivate re-shoring.
Rising labor costs in developing countries: in the last few years
labor costs in China have increased, year over year by almost
20%, in Mexico by 5%, while labor costs in the US have increased
year-over-year by only 3%.
New automation technologies that increase productivity and
require fewer but more skilled workers: cheap sensors, fast

computing, robotics and other new technologies have led to new

user-friendly manufacturing automation that shifts focus from
ensuring low labor costs to finding skilled workers.
Changing risk profile of global supply chains: realization that
strategies such as outsourcing and off-shoring can significantly
increase risk because of the geographically more dispersed
supply chains. This has driven companies to reevaluate their
supplier and manufacturing basein order to increase flexibility
and reduce risk.
Enjoy this interactive exercise, and work hard on it because it is very
useful for your future as a professional working on international
projects.
Total Cost of ownership Estimator Results:

Part 2:
The costs of a constructed facility to the owner include both the initial
capital cost and the subsequent operation and maintenance costs.

Each of these major cost categories consists of a number of cost

components.
Costs Associated with Constructed Facilities.
The costs of a constructed facility to the owner include both the initial
capital cost and the subsequent operation and maintenance costs.
Each of these major cost categories consists of a number of cost
components.
The capital cost for a construction project includes the
expenses related to the initial establishment of the facility:
Land acquisition, including assembly, holding and improvement
Planning and feasibility studies
Architectural and engineering design
Construction, including materials, equipment and labor
Field supervision of construction
Construction financing
Insurance and taxes during construction
Owner's general office overhead
Equipment and furnishings not included in construction
Inspection and testing
The operation and maintenance cost in subsequent years over
the project life cycle includes the following expenses:
Land rent, if applicable
Operating staff
Labor and material for maintenance and repairs
Periodic renovations
Insurance and taxes
Financing costs
Utilities

 Owner's other expenses

The magnitude of each of these cost components depends on the
nature, size and location of the project as well as the management
organization, among many considerations. The owner is interested in
achieving the lowest possible overall project cost that is consistent
with its investment objectives. It is important for design professionals
and construction managers to realize that while the construction cost
may be the single largest component of the capital cost, other cost
components are not insignificant. For example, land acquisition costs
are a major expenditure for building construction in high-density urban
areas, and construction financing costs can reach the same order of
magnitude as the construction cost in large projects such as the
construction of nuclear power plants. From the owner's perspective, it
is equally important to estimate the corresponding operation and
maintenance cost of each alternative for a proposed facility in order to
analyze the life cycle costs. The large expenditures needed for facility
maintenance, especially for publicly owned infrastructure, are
reminders of the neglect in the past to consider fully the implications of
operation and maintenance cost in the design stage. In most
construction budgets, there is an allowance for contingencies or
unexpected costs occurring during construction. This contingency
amount may be included within each cost item or be included in a
single category of construction contingency. The amount of
contingency is based on historical experience and the expected
difficulty of a particular construction project. For example, one
construction firm makes estimates of the expected cost in five different
areas:
Design development changes
Schedule adjustments
General administration changes (such as wage rates)
Differing site conditions for those expected, and
Third party requirements imposed during construction, such as new
permits.
Contingent amounts not spent for construction can be released near
the end of construction to the owner or to add additional project
elements.

Note, that our ISO 9001:2008 International Standard compliant process

modeling (CIMpgr), risk analysis (PFRA), and requirements analysis
methods (CORA), with the statistical methods and tools combined,
provide a very powerful method and tool-set for any project manager
to fight the above cause with quantifiable data!
Earned value management (EVM), or Earned value
project/performance management (EVPM)
Earned Value Management (EVM) technique is used to track the
Progress and Status of a Project & Forecast the likely future
performance of the Project. Earned Value Management (EVM)
technique integrates the scope, schedule and cost. If you are a project
manager then its important for you to learn EVM Earned value
management (EVM), or Earned value project/performance
management (EVPM) is a project management technique for
measuring project performance and progress in an objective manner).
Because EVM has the ability to combine measurements of
Scope
Schedule
Cost, in a single integrated system, Earned Value Management is
able to provide accurate forecasts of project performance
problems, which is an important contribution for project
management.
Early EVM research showed that the areas of planning and control are
significantly impacted by its use; and similarly, using the methodology
improves both scope definition as well as the analysis of overall project
performance. More recent research studies have shown that the
principles of EVM are positive predictors of project success. The
popularity of EVM has grown significantly in recent years beyond
government contracting, in which sector its importance continues to
rise. (EVM can also surface in and help substantiate contract
disputes.)
What is earned value analysis?
At the root of earned value analysis are three fundamental values
calculated for each task. The budgeted cost of tasks as scheduled in
the project plan, based on the costs of resources assigned to those

tasks, plus any fixed costs associated with the tasks. Called "the
budgeted cost of work scheduled," BCWS is the baseline cost up to the
status date you choose. For example, the total planned budget for a 4day task is $100 and it starts on a Monday. If the status date is set to
the following Wednesday, the BCWS is $75.
The actual cost required to complete all or some portion of the tasks,
up to the status date. This is the actual cost of work performed
(ACWP). For example, if the 4-day task actually incurs a total cost of
$35 during each of the first 2 days, the ACWP for this period is $70 (but
the BCWS is still $75).
The value of the work performed by the status date, measured in
currency. This is literally the value earned by the work performed and
is called the budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP). For example, if
after 2 days 60% percent of the work on a task has been completed,
you might expect to have spent 60 percent of the total task budget, or
$60.
Essential features of any EVM implementation include the
following:
1. A project plan that identifies work to be accomplished
2. Valuation of planned work, called Planned Value (PV) or Budgeted
Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWS), and
3. Pre-defined earning rules (also called metrics) to quantify the
accomplishment of work, called Earned Value (EV) or Budgeted Cost of
Work Performed (BCWP).
EVM implementations for large or complex projects include many more
features, such as indicators and forecasts of cost performance (over
budget or under budget) and schedule performance (behind schedule
or ahead of schedule). However, the most basic requirement of an EVM
system is that it quantifies progress using PV and EV.
It is helpful to see an example of project tracking that does not include
earned value performance management. Consider a project that has
been planned in detail, including a time-phased spend plan for all
elements of work. Figure 1 shows the cumulative budget (cost) for this
project as a function of time (the blue line, labeled PV). It also shows
the cumulative actual cost of the project (red line) through week 8. To
those unfamiliar with EVM, it might appear that this project was over

budget through week 4 and then under budget from week 6 through
week 8. However, what is missing from this chart is any understanding
of how much work has been accomplished during the project.
If the project were actually completed at week 8, then the project
would actually be well under budget and well ahead of schedule. If, on
the other hand, the project is only 10% complete at week 8, the project
is significantly over budget and behind schedule. A method is needed
to measure technical performance objectively and quantitatively, and
that is what EVM accomplishes.

Part 3: Video Conferencing (VC) session using SKYPE with

Sourabh Vyas
1. What was the purpose of the video-conferencing session?
To share each others designs, views and methods applied during the
course time. Sharing each others views always helps us to better all
our methods and approaches.
2. What software did you use for VC and how? (Must include 3-4 screen
prints of the VC session as a proof.)
We used SKYPE as the software for VC. We have been in touch for a
while and after determining the time slot convenient to each other, we
shared our SKYPE ids and started video conferencing.

3. What did you discuss and achieve during the VC session?

We discussed the details of each of our companys. Sourabh Vyass
company is RATUFA inc. where the company designs Animal Tracking
Tags.
We both have two similar collaborating companies: Bell & Howell and
Haimer.
We differ in some methodologies and approaches we when we
discussed how different two people can lead a company. As different
people have different perspectives on different things, we learned
many different things about each others companies and methods.

4. How do you like this video-conferencing approach for collaborative

problem solving?
This is really effective. Discussing about each others perspective made
me to think in a different way as I was approaching and thinking in a
dingle way. Now, I got to know that there could be many possibilities.
5. What were the main challenges (e.g. slow Internet connection)?

Definitely not slow Internet connection but to understand each others

methodologies over video conferencing to become a little bit, very little
difficulty as it became to view in a screen sharing. We had to read out
the sentences. This is my perspective. There could be other challenges
and difficulties for Sourabh Vyas.
6. What worked well, and what did not, and why?
After this meeting we felt that it would be good to share each others
URLs of their websites, so that it would be much effective in
understanding each others company. We both agreed for that and
even we had some similar methods in cases and we both agreed in
each others terms.
7. In comparison to a face-to-face visit, versus VC, what is the
estimated carbon footprint saving to the environment? How did you
calculate this result? (Hint: search the web, there are some really
useful carbon footprint calculators for free!)

We discussed about Carbon Foot printing and calculated for each other
individually. Of course Face to face meeting and through VC has
different effects but to calculate that it would be obvious that through
VC, it would be much less. No travel expenses and no pollution and etc.
8. What are Green Engineering benefits of using VC?
Video conferencing not only saves money by eliminating travel costs; it
also reduces the harmful emissions and fossil fuel use that are
necessary for business conference travel. By using the power of the
Internet for clear, sharp video and voice transmission, video
conferencing allows people from across the country or even across the
world to meet and conduct real-time, face-to-face discussions from the
convenience of their own offices at a mutually agreed upon time.
Often, that time is convenient for all participants in the discussion no
matter their own time zones.

This means that thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars in travel

and lodging costs are saved, as the price of a video conferencing
session often amounts to less than that of even an automobile trip
from a neighboring American state. Moreover, video conferencing uses
only small amounts of electricity, as relatively little power is needed to
maintain an Internet connection and a computer during the video
conference. This contrasts remarkably with the huge amount of fossil
fuel that is expended when participants in a traditional conference
have to travel to a central location by car, train or airplane.

In addition, Internet communications, including Video Conferencing, do

not emit any significant levels of greenhouse gases or other pollutants
into the air. Needless to say, this is not the case with any form of travel
in any vehicle that is powered by fossil fuel. Therefore, relying upon
video conferencing for business discussions, or even for family
reunions, minimizes harm to the environment.
Video conferencing also eliminates the need for arranging lodging for
conference participants. The budget for lodging associated with a
traditional conference can easily equal twenty or thirty times the cost
of a video conference.
Since everything which is discussed in a video conference is saved and
downloaded, there is no need for the huge amounts of paper that are
often given out at traditional conferences. This saves printing costs and
also is beneficial to the environment. Less paper means less waste in
our landfills, and relying on Video Conferencing servers for saving the
proceeding of the conference also eliminates the need for disks and
other non-biodegradable materials that are often distributed at
traditional conferences. In addition to this, the video can be saved
using the H.264 video format which drastically reduces the file size of

any content that was recorded since H.264 is capable of compressing

files up to 50% more than some of the older file formats.
The introduction of HD Video conferencing has enabled video to be
viewed in crystal clear High Definition and many organizations now
offer full 1080P video conferencing which results in an amazingly life
like experience. Sceptics would often refute the use of HD video
conferencing by claiming that a high amount of bandwidth is required
in order to be able to transmit a High Definition signal which would
prove too costly but this is no longer the case since the H.264 video
format allows a HD signal to be transmitted by using only 768kbps of
data. This is relatively small compared to what todays broadband
internet connections are capable of.
Video conferencing is arguably the most effective way to gather large
amounts of people and allow them to have a face to face conversation
without the need to travel many miles. As technology becomes more
advanced, video conferencing solutions are becoming cheaper than
ever which is bringing video conferencing to the masses and more
people are realizing the financial and environmental benefits of video
conferencing as a tool to communicate to people all over the World in
the comfort of their own home or office.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

Summary:
In this Assignment, I have summarized objectives and methodologies
from Assignments 0-4 and Re-submitted all the previous assignments
and a brief description of chapters 6 and 7 along with the discussion of
a video conferencing with Sourabh Vyas.
Further work needed/proposed:
Furthermore work is to develop a better manufacturing process which
reduces much less wastage and their by less pollution ensuring
sustainable Green and I want to learn more about Total Cost of
Ownership Estimates & Carbon Foot Printing.
References and Bibliography:

Paul G. Rankys E-Pack

Google
http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/
http://www.reshorenow.org/edit-tco-results/1577/

Grade your own assignment:

I give myself an A or 30/30. I believe I learned a lot from this course in

this whole summer even though I know I have to learn a lot more.
Thank you so much for this course sir.