Case $$ Project Management

Background: Southwestern University Case A

Southwestern University $($SWU$),$ a large state college in Stephenville, Texas, $30$ miles southwest of Dallas$/$Fort Worth metroplex, enrolls close to $20,000$ students. In a typical town$-$gown relationship, the school is a dominant force in the small city, with more students during fall and spring than permanent residents.

A longtime football powerhouse, SWU is a member of the Big Eleven conference and is usually in the top $20$ in college football rankings. To bolster its changes of reaching the elusive and long$-$desired number$-$one ranking, in $2009,$ SWU hired the legendary Phil Flamm as its head coach.

One of Flamm$$s demands on joining SWU had been a new stadium. With attendance increasing, SWU administrators began to face the issue head$-$on$.$ After $6$ months of study, much political arm wrestling, and some serious financial analysis, Dr$.$ Joel Wisner, president of Southwestern University, had reached a decision to expand the capacity at its on$-$campus stadium.

Adding thousands of seats, including dozens of luxury skyboxes, would not please everyone. The influential Flamm had argued the need for a first$-$class stadium, one with built$-$in dormitory rooms for his players and a palatial office appropriate for the coach of a future NCAA champion team. But the decision was made, and everyone, including the coach, would learn to live with it$.$

The job now was to get construction going immediately after the $2015$ season ended. This would allow exactly $270$ days until the $2016$ season opening game. The contractor, Hill Construction $($Bob Hill being an alumnus, of course$),$ signed his contract. Bob Hill looked at the tasks his engineers had outlined and looked President Wisner in the eye. $$I guarantee the team will be able to take the field on schedule next year,$$ he said with a sense of confidence. $$I sure hope so$,$ replied Wisner. $$The contract penalty of $$10,000$ per day for running late is nothing compared to what Coach Flamm will do to you if our opening game with Penn State is delayed or canceled.$$ Hill, sweating slightly, did not need to respond. In football$-$crazy Texas, Hill Construction would be mud if the $270-$day target was missed.

Back in his office, Hill again reviewed the data $($see Table $3\mathrm{.}6)$ and noted that optimistic time estimates can be used as crash times. He then gathered his foremen. $$Folks$,$ if we$$re not $75\%$ sure we$$ll finish this stadium in less than $270$ days, I want this project crashed! Give me the cost figures for a target date

Solution Requirements

Utilize Microsoft Excel to complete the following steps. Submit the assignment in Excel for credit. No credit will be given for work submitted in another file format. Pay attention to formatting and clearly label all steps.

$1.$ Draw the project network diagram.

$2.$ Calculate the mean $($expected activity time$),$ standard deviation, and variance for each activity. Create a table to display the results.

$3.$ Find the critical path. Utilize a forward and backward pass analysis. Create a table to display ES$,$ EF$,$ LS$,$ LF$,$ and slack. Calculate the expected project completion time and the standard deviation of the critical path. Use the mean activity time in your calculations.

$4.$ Find the probability of completing in $270$ days.

$5.$ Examine the possibility of crashing the project to $250$ and $240$ days. How would you crash the project? What activities? How many days? What is the cost of crashing?

Hint: use the optimistic time as the crash time $$ you will need to calculate the total cost of crashing using the cost per day.

$6.$ Provide recommendations to managers of actions that should be pursued. Share your insights that you discovered while solving the problem.

Please solve the full case correctly $to$ get thumbs $up$