Company description The (fictitious) company PPC currently is a 100% subsidiary of an Australian company and is a direct competitor of companies such as Courier Post, NZ Courier, Fastway Couriers. PPC headquarter is located near Auckland International Airport and has large NZ and international e-tailers (such as A-Mazin, It-KEA, and Goodshouse) as regular business customers. PPC has distribution centres (depots) for all incoming parcels (part of their inbound logistics) in Auckland, Wellington and in Christchurch, and delivers (part of their outbound logistics) parcels to customers in these 3 cities. These (end) customers are private households and small businesses. For a national coverage, PPC cooperates with NZ Post, who delivers parcels to customers in rural areas and in the other urban areas. Hence NZ Post acts as a distribution channel but has no direct contacts with PPCs business customers (the e-tailers). Or perhaps NZ Post should be seen as a competitor? PPC currently has no larger businesses or governmental organisations (B2B, B2G) as end-customers. Those segments are not considered profitable enough. Instead, PPCs e-tailers use direct competitors of PPC to serve those segments. In PPC they run all types of projects, either directly aimed at improving customer satisfaction via delivery of new services, or aimed at increasing PPCs internal efficiency, or to improve the inbound logistics with e-tailers or the outbound logistics with NZ Post. Although the PPC headquarter is in Auckland, most people either work in the distribution centres (DCs) or are on the road in the typical black PPC vans. Especially after initial lockdowns in COVID19, the market is booming. However, fulfilment for the e-tailers has quite come challenges in the NZ context. Tracking and tracing is an issue, and the reverse logistics of (household) customers wanting to return parcels back to the e-tailers can give some headaches from a sustainability and profitability perspective. In general, competition is said to be stiff, and profitability has steadily decreased over the past years. There is talk of consolidation in the market, or at least more integration and cooperation between companies in this parcel supply chain. There is also increasing pressure from government to reduce CO2 emissions. The management team recently did a strategic analysis: the value chain, Porter 5Forces, etc, etc towards a SWOT analysis. This gave relevant insights for PPC management and also for its project managers. PPC is still discussing its strategic options, though. Being a large company from a NZ perspective, PPC has a low overhead ratio, but responsibilities are not always clear. There is some discussion whether PPC should have more specialised staff / engineers with a bachelor education, and they already have some IT specialists with a BCIS degree from AUT. The director of Marketing & Sales (M&S) manages the M&S to NZ end customers, and also handles the strategic relations with the e-tailers. The Finance Director keeps telling M&S that PPC has an operational excellence strategy, whereas M&S wants to realise a customer intimacy strategy, especially to the e-tailers. The General Manager is very experienced in the parcel business and has been working for NZ Post for almost 4 decades before he was asked to manage PPC. The IT manager reports to the Finance Director; the HR manager to the General Manager. The Operations Director has a masters degree in Logistics & Distribution and is a people manager. And that is good, because she has to manage her six team managers. Three for each of the three distribution centres (depots) with 50 temporary & permanent staff, and three for the three transport teams of approx. 120 temporary & permanent staff driving 100 vans. (Part of these vans are owned by the temporary staff who have been hired as contractors). The Auckland distribution centre is the largest with approx. 30 staff.

Likewise the Auckland transport team hires approx. 50 staff. These contractors are managed via the team managers of Operations. Bigger vans (trucks) are used to collect the parcels either from Auckland Airport or from NZ e-tailers. You are one out of five project managers and report to the Operations director. Staff members of PPC may act as a project members on a need-to basis. Consultancy firms & suppliers, and staff from the e-tailers or from NZ Post often also provide project members. As a project manager you will be responsible for the three projects as described below. PROJECT 1: ALL THESE PROJECT METHODS?! (16 marks; 160 points) You have now gained several years of project experience, first at the AUT in several projects with other students, perhaps in a final project, then as a member of the local rugby club in planning the next rugby season, and finally at PPC. Youve seen all types of successful and failed projects. These failed either on content or on project management structure. Within PPC several project types are used, which lead to confusion with the e-tailers, with internal staff, and with suppliers and NZ post. After you successfully completed a project, the Operations Director asks you to investigate several project methods and come with recommendations for PPC to standardise its project management method. There is a wide array of information in textbooks & on the Internet, but it is difficult for PPC to select the best approach! Note that she is a fan of concise reports, and hates to read long fluffy texts. One of her favourite sayings is: If you cannot explain it in 1 2 pages, no use writing a chunky bestseller. There is some disagreement within PPC. One of the aspects the Finance Director struggles with, for example, is that financial aspect of business cases (future incomes / benefits) and cost calculations (invoices and HR costs) often do not align. One of her famous quotes is, that if all PPC projects were as successful as they claimed, then I do not understand why we are not already millionaires, if we add up all project savings & benefits At the same time, Marketing & Sales struggles with the inflexible approach on projects with e-tailers. And also: why start a critical project just before the Festivity season early in December? The team managers in Operation dislike the frequent disruptions on the work floor, and do not want to provide people or support for unnecessary projects. And on methods? The General Director heard about Prince2; a new colleague is fond of agile, yet another of waterfall projects. Furthermore, you know from your study and literature (see e.g. the website of Project Management Institute, or others) that there are several good project approaches (aka project types, or project methods, methodology). You accept this first assignment from the Operations Director. Hence your assignment is to identify and evaluate several (2 5) project methods, and analyse / assess / motivate which would the best one for PPC. For this you also need to determine key characteristics of the methods, and the specific circumstances withing PPC. This helps you to determine (and motivate) which method is best. Otherwise you would randomly select a method that looks great, but does not work in practice. Finally, the ops director wants a clear report from the team. Hence the Ops director wants you / the team to: 1. Roughly follow the questions below for your report. However, the main text must be approx. 500 1000 words. (This excludes any text / words in your templates). Additionally, provide a well-written management summary (another 100 - 250 words) to be positioned on the second page of your report. Use appendices! The report should look business-like, and help management take decisions, so provide clear conclusions and recommendations. (4 Marks). 2. Define what a project method is in the context of PPC (2 marks). 3. Analyse several project methods based on reliable Internet sources. Individuals will describe, compare and contrast 2 methods / approaches; larger teams describe, compare and contrast 3-4 methods / approaches. (Use at least 5 good sources, with accurate referencing!) (4 Marks) 4. You need to select the best project method for your organisation. Therefore: clearly motivate and state the criteria you use for your selection. These criteria consider (a) the characteristics of the project methods, (b) the PPC culture, organisation and strategy, (c) the external PPC environment, and (d) any other relevant material that you find in the literature (4 Marks) 5. Select one preferred project method using the criteria from #4. (2 Marks