a. Describe how the various project management techniques covered in this chapter might be relevant to this problem. When and to whom might CPM be useful? When and to whom might PERT be useful? When and to whom might the crashing technique be useful?

b. If you were Cal and wanted to get the project done as quickly as possible, what aspects of this job might be of greatest concern to you? How would you manage these issues?

c. What are some of the worst case outcomes that might arise in this project?

d. What special clauses, if any, might you want included in the contract with whichever sprinkler company is selected? Would any of the techniques discussed in this chapter be useful in determining or negotiating these clauses?

Cal Hampton is on the board of directors of Crossroad Academy, a private, parent-run, K-12 school in Shawsville, VA. In an effort to increase enrollment at this school in the coming year, several months ago Cal and other board members voted to give a 25% tuition discount to any new students from families who had never been affiliated with Crossroad before. As it turned out, this offer worked so well that Crossroad’s enrollment swelled by 30% and the school suddenly needed to build some new classrooms to accommodate this growth. And that’s why Cal was in the town’s building inspector’s office on July 10th—where he was told that Crossroad’s building plan for new classrooms were fine, but that no classes could be held at the school until a fire sprinkler and alarm system had been installed.

The school was planning to use volunteer labor to build the new classrooms before classes started on August 23rd. But installing a fire sprinkler and alarm system throughout the building is quite another matter. So Cal and his fellow board members quickly got busy contacting sprinkler contractors and getting price quotes on this job. They also got busy lining up other places they could conduct classes until their building situation was resolved.

Cal quickly learned more than he ever wanted to know about fire sprinkler systems. Because Crossroad’s school building is a two-story wood-frame structure, a dry pipe system had to be installed in the attic of the building to protect the upper floor against fire. In a dry pipe system, the pipes are filled with pressurized air to avert the risk of freezing in unheated spaces. If a fire is detected, one or more sprinkler heads open, releasing the pressurized air which, in turn, allows water to flow through the pipes to the sprinkler heads. On the lower level of the building, a wet pipe system (where the pipes constantly hold water) would be more cost-effective.

A multitude of other details remain to be worked out: the wet and dry systems have to be designed and approved by the town, a new 6-inch water line has to be run to the building, new phone lines have to be installed to support the fire alarm monitoring service, various types of sprinkler heads have to be selected and ordered, and the whole thing needs to be installed and pass various tests required by the town and the local fire marshal.

Within a week, three different sprinkler contractors have visited the school and submitted proposals for completing the work at the school. One of the proposals is substantially more expensive than the other two and is immediately eliminated from further consideration. Now Cal and the rest of the board must decide on which of the other proposals to accept. One proposal is from a local company, Fire Protection Services (FPS), that has been in business for over 20 years. The other proposal is from Safety Technology Group (STG), a fairly new company located in a large city about 40 miles from Shawsville.

Although STG is a new company, the people working for STG have many years of experience in the fire safety industry. Their project manager, Ron Brag, supervised the largest sprinkler installation job in the commonwealth of Virginia while working for a different sprinkler company. Additionally, Ron has told Cal that while STG has a number of jobs in progress, he has a crew who is just finishing a project and could start on the Crossroads job immediately. In fact, Ron has told Cal he thinks there is a good chance his company could get the job done before the start of school and, in the worst case, by the end of August. One of the families at Crossroad used STG on another job and reported being pleased with their work.

FPS has held the service contract on the fire extinguishers at Crossroad for many years and always has done a good job. The project manager for FPS is a middle-aged man named Max Randall, a slow-talking country boy. He has supervised several sprinkler installations in the area (FPS typically does only one or two jobs at a time) and knows the town building inspector and fire marshal well. He knows that Crossroad is desperate to get this job done quickly, but he tells Cal, “Well, to get your business, I could lie to you and tell you we’ll get this done before school starts. But the fact is, it will probably be the end of September before we or anyone else can get this done for you.”

The bids from FPS and STG are both for turnkey systems and are within a few thousand dollars of each other. So now Cal and the rest of Crossroad’s board members are trying to decide which bid to accept.