Managing a deterministic anchored strength project. In this lecture, we will develop a plan for the easy rate of development project. This scenario is deterministic as activity duration is known for certain, and the sharp probability is 100 percent for all types of resources. Re-focussing this scenario is on the improvement or the project plan. We will start with a default plan, and show how it can be improved by changing modes of activities, and the level of resources used for the project. We will use the project Team Builder next to run a deterministic scenario. A scenario of a project that has no uncertainty. In Run It, select PTB training simulator, and then, click for PTB training simulator to start the software. Enter your username and password. Click on Okay. Select the In Used cases the Easy Radar Development Scenario. The first screen is a network diagram where we can see the five activities or tasks in the precedence relations among them. We can see the same information under Tasks. Again, we see the five activities or five tasks, and the predecessors of each of these five activities. Next, we can look at the upper right corner of the screen where we see information about the whole project for example. We start with five hundred thousand dollars cash. Our target cost is $32,000 and the target period or the due date for the project is 16 periods. Next, let's have a look at the quality requirements. There are three requirements: the radar range, its quality, and its reliability. For each requirement, we have a formula by which the requirement is calculated given the tasks that affect the value of these requirement. We also see the relative importance of the weight assigned to each requirement, and the range of values which is acceptable. For example, the range can be anywhere between 10 months and 12 months. Anything below 10 is not feasible and above 12 is okay, but will not give us a higher score than 12. We can start with a default plan. So, we will click on default. And now each task is planned using the default which is early a start and the least expensive mode of operation. For example, if we click on System Engineering, its early start is time zero and it will be performed with a small team, which is the mode that is least expensive. It is a deterministic scenario and therefore the optimistic most likely and pessimistic duration are all the same. Now that we have a plan, we can look at the upper right corner again, and we can see that the estimated duration is 18, and it is in red because it's longer than the 16 period required. The estimated cost is 60,000, and it's in red because it's higher than the set at 32,000, which is the target cost. And the benefit generated by this plan is 76.67, which is a rather low value. Next we can look at the schedule by clicking on the Get chart and we can see that the first activity, which is Systems Engineering takes seven periods as we saw earlier as we are using the small team. Now, we can try and improve our plan. The first thing is to look at the critical path. So let's create critical tasks. And we see that there are three critical activities. Systems Engineering, antenna design and integration and testing. In order to reduce the project duration, we have to reduce the duration of one of the critical activities. Let's also look at the detailed budget and see why the project is so expensive and you can see that we are paying a penalty of 40,000 for period 17 and 18 as the required a due date was 16 periods. Thus, we can reduce the project cost by reducing its duration because we will not have to pay the penalty. And even though switching some modes will cost us money it will not cost as much as $40,000. So, let's go back to the Gantt chart, and we'll start by looking at the System Engineering activity. Click on it. And we can change the duration from seven to four by switching to a large team. Although the fixed cost will be higher, we will need three engineers instead of one. In addition a technician, this is still fine. The impact on the project quality is good as the System Engineering quality SEQ will increase from.8 to.99. The impact on reliability of the system is also good as the reliability of system design DR will increase from.8 to.9. So, by clicking on large team, we switch the mode, and we can see now the impact. First, the benefit is up to 83.86. We can see that now we can reschedule the three activities that are successors of System Engineering. We can easily drag each activity or we can simply plan the whole project on an early start by clicking on Plan early. And then the whole project will start early, and the project duration is now 15, and it's in green because it's shorter than the required duration, and the estimated cost is 22, and it is less than the required cost. As I said earlier, the benefit is now 83. Question is, can we improve the benefit? In order to do that, we have to look at the quality requirements. And we see that the current range is 11.07 halfway between 10 and 12, and therefore, the score is about 50 percent. The quality is 73.74, which is almost the required or the desired quality, and therefore, the score is 98. Reliability is 65.61, which is higher than the 65 required. Therefore, the score is 100. Our greatest potential for improving benefit is in the range. So let's look at the quality function deployment, and we can see that the range is a function of three parameters. TP, which is determined by the transmitter design, RS or the receiver sensitivity determined by the receiver design, and AG or antenna gain, which is determined by the antenna design. So these three activities: the transmitter design, receiver design, and antenna design should be tested. Let's look at the first one. If we look at the transmitter design, we see that there is another mode, a new design. But if we'll select this mode, the activity will take nine periods, and the whole project will be delayed. Let's click on it to see the impact, and you can see that the project will take 17 periods, and although the benefit is higher, the cost and the duration are not acceptable. We'll switch back to reengineering and plan early, and we'll try to second the activity, which is the receiver design. Again, we can improve the benefits, but the project will take longer as the new design mode takes 10 periods. If we test it, we see that we get a higher benefit of 93, but the estimated period is 18 longer than the required, and the estimated cost is 76 higher than the required cost. So, we'll switch back to reengineering. We'll go to Plan Early, and we try the third possibility. The third one is the antenna design. We have a new design option. And in this mode, the activity will take longer. It will take eight periods instead of seven, and will cost more. We'll also require more engineers, and the same number of technicians. So let's try it. I'll click on it, and we can see that the product duration is now 16, which is exactly as require. The estimated cost is 26, which is acceptable, and the benefit is 100. We have a very good plan. The next step is to check the resources to see if we have enough resources to implement the plan. So, we'll go to the resource charts and look at the engineers. Actually, in the first four periods, we need three engineers, and currently we have 10. Therefore, there is some idle time that we can see in the detailed budget. And of course, if you look at the cost of idle time, we'll see that the idle resources cost 440 in the first four periods. We can improve the situation by changing the number of engineers to three. We'll do it by selecting engineers, and releasing seven out of the 10 engineers. Now, the number of engineers is changed after the lead time of one period. And there is no idle time in periods two, three and four. However, we have to remember to add engineers in period three, so that they will be available in period four as there is a lead time of one period when we hire and fire engineers. Doing the same for the technicians, we see that we have 10 technicians, we need only one. However, the minimum number of technicians in this scenario is two. Therefore, we can release almost eight, and we'll do it. Looking at the number of technicians, we see that we have some idle time, but it's much less than it was, and in the detailed budget, we can see that the cost of idle time is down to 470 mostly because in the first period, we could not release the engineers and technicians due to the lead time for releasing. Now, we have a good plan, and we can start running the project. We do that by selecting execute, and we will do it one period at a time. So, we run the first period, and we can see that the project is now in progress. The first activity is started. And actually, we can move up to period three where we have to add resources. Look back at the resource chart. We currently have three engineers, we need nine therefore, we'll add six engineers. In the above, we have all green, meaning that we have enough engineers. Actually, in period nine we can release some of the engineers. We'll do the same for the technicians. And again, we can see that we have two technicians while we will need four in period four, therefore, we'll add two technicians, taking into account the lead time for those resources. Again, everything is in green in the bar charts, and we can run the project up to period eight where we can release some of the resources. So let's do that. And actually you can see the time moves or you can see on the Gantt chart that the first activity is finished. We will continue running the project, and we'll get to period eight where we can release some of the resources. Actually, we currently have nine engineers, we need only five, so we'll release four. And we look at the technicians, we currently have four technicians. We need only two, so we will release two. Please note that in period 11 we will have to add technicians, and in the same period, we can release some of the engineers. So, let's run up to period 11, and now we will adjust the resources. Going back to the engineers, we currently have five engineers, we need only three, so we can release two engineers. Looking at the technicians, we currently have two technicians, we need three, so we will add a technician. Now our plan is feasible, and we can run the project to the end. We finish the project, our duration is 16 periods. Our total cost is 34,380, which is a little bit more than the required or the target cost, so we could do better, but the system benefit is 100, which is excellent. If we generate a PDF report, we can see everything that we have done, all of our decisions, and the outcome of the project in a PDF report. You can try now to generate a better plan and to run it. Thank you.
