Read the Analytics Exercise: Product Design Project presented in Ch$.4.$

Use techniques and tools related to project management including project network analysis, time estimates, and earned value analysis discussed in Ch$.4$ of the text.

Analyze the project and the proposed project changes.

Prepare a presentation to management on the project and include:

The impact of the changes

Recommendations for moving forward with the projectDraw a project network that includes all the activities.

Calculate the start and finish times for each activity and determine the minimum number of weeks for completing the project. Find the

activities that are on the critical path for completing the project in the shortest time.

Identify slack in the activities not on the project critical path.

You have been asked to study the impact of making two changes to how the project is organized. The first change involves using

dedicated teams that would work strictly in parallel on the activities in each subproject. For example, in subproject $P($product

specifications$)$ the team would work on P$1,$ P$2,$ P$3,$ and P$4$ all in parallel. In other words, there would be no precedence relationships

within a subproject$-$all tasks within a subproject would be worked on at the same time and each would take the same amount of time

as originally specified. With this new design, all the subprojects would be done sequentially with $P$ done first, then $S,D,$I, and finally

V$.$ What would be the expected impact on how long it would take to complete the project if this change were made?

The second change to consider would be to select the suppliers during subproject $P$ and have them work directly with the dedicated

teams as described in step $4.$ This would involve adding an additional activity to subproject $P$ called supplier selection and contract

negotiation $($P$5)$ with a duration of $12$ weeks. This new activity would be done in parallel with P$1,$ P$2,$ P$3,$ and P$4.$ Subprojects S and V

would be eliminated from the project. What would be the expected impact on how long it would take to complete the project if this

additional change were made?

Evaluate the impact of making these changes using criteria other than just the time to complete the project. Do you think it would be

best to try to make these changes in how the firm runs this and future cell phone design projects?