BACKGROUND

Seneca Cable Manufacturing (SCM) was a low-cost producer of cables and wires. The industry itself was considered a low-technology industry, and some of its products had been manufactured the same way for decades.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, manufacturing technologies began to grow. SCM had to prepare for the technology revolution that was about to impact its business. Each department manager began preparing lists of projects that it would need to work on, and some lists contained as many as 200 projects. These projects were more complex than projects worked on previously, and project team members from all departments were assigned on either a full-time or part-time basis.

PRIORITIZATION ISSUES

Each of the four department managersEngineering, Marketing, Manufacturing, and R&Dhad projects, but the projects were generally quite small and used resources from only each individual department.

Each department manager would establish the priorities for the projects originating in his or her department even though the projects required resources from other departments. The total number of projects that the four department managers wanted to complete over the next few years exceeded 350, most of which required a team with members coming from more than one division. This created significant staffing issues and numerous conflicts:

Each department manager would preserve its best project resources even though some projects outside of his/her department were deemed more important to the overall success of the company.

Each department manager seemed to have little concern about any projects done in other departments.

Project priorities within each department could change daily because of the personal judgment of its manager.

The only costs and schedules that were important were those related to projects that originated within the department.

Senior management at the corporate level refused to get involved in the resolution of conflicts between departments.

Questions :-

Let's assume that the decision was to create a short list that included just one project in each

department. What are the right projects (right are of investment) to have the priority based on the required change in SCM?