MS-PROJECT EXERCISE

An aerospace company has received a contract from NASA for the final assembly of a space module for an upcoming mission. The Project Manager has identified two types of critical resources, engineers and technicians that are needed in the project. Following table lists the project tasks, their precedence relationships, durations, material cost and resource requirements. The indicated resources are needed for the duration of each task.

For example 3 engineers and 7 technicians are needed during the 30 days of task time for Task A and a half time engineer and 1 technician are needed for the 30 days of task duration for Task C.

Task Label	Task Definition	Duration (Days)	Predecessors	Material Cost	Engineers Required	Technicians Required
A	Construct Shell of Module	30	-	$35,000	3	7
B	Procure Life Support System and Experimentation Package	15	-	$50,000	0.5	0
C	Procure Components of Control and Navigational System	30	-	$80,000	0.5	1
D	Wire Module	3	A	$4,500	3	5
E	Assemble Control and Navigational System	7	C	$1,500	2	6
F	Preliminary Test of Life Support System	2	B	$1,500	1	3
G	Install Life Support in Module	5	D, F	$1,000	1	5
H	Install Experimentation Package in Module	3	D, F	$1,200	1	4
I	Preliminary Test of Control and Navigational System	4	E, F	$1,800	1	3
J	Install Control and Navigational System in Module	10	H, I	$3,000	2	6
K	Final Testing and Debugging	8	G, J	$4,800	2	5

• Schedule the project from the project start date August 24, 2020
• Use Work Breakdown Structure and Gantt Chart.
• Five engineers and 15 technicians are available for the duration of the project.
• Use the number when assigning engineers and technicians (i.e., Eng 1, Eng 2,... Eng 5; Tech 1, Tech 2, Tech 3, ... Tech 15)
• Use the task label when assigning material costs (i.e., Material A, Material B, ..., Material K).
• Put material, engineers, and technicians in the Resource Sheet.
• Engineers and technicians are paid at the rate of $100/hour and $35/hour, respectively. Any overwork is paid 1.5 times.
• Engineers and Technicians hourly rate will be increased to $135, and $45, respectively, in two months.
• Engineers are few (only five) but there are many tasks to be done. Overtime will take place. Your job is to minimize the overtime of workers (that is, to minimize the total costs) by efficiently allocating resources (engineers and technicians) to the task.