1.1 Background:
A project is a set of tasks, arranged in a defined sequence or relationship, that produce a pre-defined output or effect. A project always has a start, middle and an end. When "projects" are big, important and costly, limited time and resources are available to accomplish goals. Sometimes the projects are risky. This is where Project Management comes in. Project Management can help guide efforts and provide effective outcomes. Project Management tools and techniques, enable to function with speed, affordability and complexity.
1.2 Motivation:
Project
Management is a set of principles, methods, tools and techniques for planning,
organizing, staffing, directing and controlling of related activities to
achieve an objective with time, cost and performance constraints.
Project Management function primarily involves Planning, Monitoring and Controlling. These involve estimating, scheduling, tracking progress and implementing corrective action wherever needed. Effective project management reduces the risk of failure and increases the probability of success. An efficient Project Management software provides the Project Managers, the ability of interfacing with management and giving them a proper appreciation of the state of the project and ensuring that they can make appropriate resource allocation decisions that involve time, people and money.
Hence as learners of Industrial and Production and Mechanical Engineering we find it challenging and interesting field to work in and contribute.
1.3 Challenges:
There
are no hard and fast rules or techniques evolved that can be used to tackle all
the problems in this area. Different organizations may have conflictive
objectives therefore unique solutions are required for each individual
organization. It is also a dynamic system involving uncertainties and
inter-dependencies of time and cost parameters for various activities in a
Project, making it difficult to determine the most effective strategy.
1.4 Scope of the Project:
This project aims at reviewing the major decisions in the life cycle of a project - from project identification, to appraisal, to selection, to planning and finally implementation. A software project module has been developed for many of the major decisions in the project life cycle.
The purpose of developing these modules is to
· provide convenient computational packages to handle the routinely encountered problems in project management.
·
assist in laboratory experimentation with varying project parameters to gain insights into
solutions and algorithms.
·
solve a real
life case study with actual data which might be difficult to handle manually.
The
software has been developed for a genre of projects where the user is able to provide
input in the form of precedence relationships, time, cost
and resource requirements of the activities for the project.