CASE STUDY #2 - WBS & Project Plan

Every Wednesday morning the President convenes his weekly status meeting with all the functional managers. The meeting is to review the progress of the company work, address any problems and issues, and discuss future events. At this meeting the president discusses the WIDGET PRO Unit. He indicates the the WIDGET PRO project can potentially have a Return on Investment (ROI) of 200%. The functional managers have expressed their concern on adding a project to their already busy on-going business designing a new series of test equipment that could also provide substantial return on investment. The president appreciates their concerns, but feels they can come up with a plan.

Although not stated at the meeting, the functional managers feel that the presidents "brain child" project places them between a rock and a hard spot. They need to maintain production of current test equipment, and now they also need to focus on designing, building, testing and manufacturing a pizza box folding machine that the engineers know very little how to design one. A pizza box folding machine is a far cry from test equipment, not to mention it's the president's project.

The functional managers have gathered together to try to come up with a way to integrate the WIDGET PRO into the mix and still maintain efficiency and productivity with the test equipment products. You are a participant at the meeting:

John: Design Engineering Department Manager: I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have anybody with experience in pizza box folding machines, or even available to do this project, and we only have 8 months to design and test the unit.

Steve: Software Engineering Department Manager: You're not alone, none of us have extra people to put on this project.

Robert: Business Analysis (Marketing) Department Manager: We need to come up with some sort of a plan, and soon. We performed a Business Case Analysis and found this could be profitable to the company if we're successful in selling the first 200 units by the end of 2023. We plan to develop the Marketing Plan as part of the project, and revise our web-site to include a pages specific to WIDGET PRO information.

John: Design Engineering Department Manager: At the request of the president, my team has already come up with a partial plan. We made the plan into a Statement of Work and have included a paper design of the WIDGET PRO. We can start there. We at least have a preliminary design and test plan.

Scott: Test Facility Manager: I have come up with some idea for an Environmental Test and Acceptance Test for the unit. But I need to verify the make-up of the unit to be sure of the type of tests and test procedures to use, and test metrics to ensure the requirements are being met.

Jay: Manufacturing Manager: Gentlemen, that all positive, but we still have a major problem. With the production of test equipment at peak, I have no capacity on the manufacturing floor to manufacture the WIDGET PRO, no matter how simple the design of the WIDGET PRO Unit is. I can't manufacture 200 of those "things" starting in September 2023. I don't have the space or the personnel.

They all look to you and ask, "To help Scott's Environmental and Acceptance Tests effective, please develop a Work Breakdown Structure for the WIDGET PRO Unit?"

After careful thought they also ask you, "Can you also look at the Statement of Work and come up with some of plan to manufacture 200 WIDGET PRO Units that will not severely impact the test equipment work?"

NOTE: Provide a plan to address the question NOT a complete Project Management Plan.

Instructions

Develop the WIDGET PRO Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

You can find the components that make up the WIDGET PRO in the Statement of Work.

Come up with a plan to manufacture 200 WIDGET PRO Units without severely impacting the test equipment work.

Explain the reason for your plan.

Guidelines:

You can submit the WIDGET PRO WBS in either the Hierarchical Format or the Tabular Format

Your Plan will be no more than two pages in APA format

Your reason for your Plan will be no more than one page in APA format

When you're satisfy that you have responded correctly to the questions, and have created an accurate WBS, save your work

Your submission shall contain:

Title Page

WIDGET PRO WBS

No more than a two-page Plan

One-page reason for the Plan (Case Study #2 will be no more than 5 pages)

Pages will be numbered in the following format: Page x of x pages

The Title Page shall consist of:

Case Study # & Title

Name of team members

Submission Date