Research Assignment Objective: To setup a new superstore branch in suburbs of London Purpose: To provide services and employment opportunities for local community Scenario: You have been asked to set up a project plan for setting up an additional branch for a super store like Tesco. This involves buying all necessary hardware like computers for check out stations, mobile barcode readers for scanning the prices and relabeling them for any reduced price offers etc. It has been assumed that the building infrastructure already exists and is developed by a well known local builder. However, you need to develop a plan that incorporates all electrical, plumbing and networking. All these tasks are done by electrician, plumber and network engineer; each would cost & #163;200, & #163;250 and & #163;300 a day respectively. Major tasks include getting the quotations from different vendors, comparing the prices and deciding the specs and vendor, ordering the checkout stations, cabling, physically installing the checkout stations, putting the LAN cables and connecting all the checkout stations to the network and finally installing all the required software. It is estimated from the past experience that getting quotations from different vendors may take up to two weeks. You need one week to decide the specs and get it approved by top management. Vendors usually take two to three weeks to get you the order delivered. Assume all check out stations hardware, mobile barcode readers are supplied by one vendor. However, the air conditioning units are supplied by a different vendor and may take up to two weeks. Cabling is done by a network engineer and installation of air conditioning units is done by a contractor. These tasks may take a maximum of 3 working days. After all hardware is in its place, all the software must be required to be installed. This may take a maximum of 5 working days. This can be done by internal IT staff member from the head office. Assume that all required software is available and ready to be installed. As the superstore is quite big, it is decided to buy 30 checkout stations, each of which include a monitor, keyboard, card (magnetic stripe) reader, bar code reader, digital weighing scale, printer, pin and chip card reader, conveyor belt system etc. Each check out station would typically cost & #163;1000. Twenty air conditioning units, 10 freezers to store frozen food are also required. Air conditioning units and freezers cost & #163;500 and & #163;750 respectively. Two security systems must be installed at each of the two entrances. This would cost & #163;1000 each unit. Hardware staff cost & #163;300 per day. There will be at least 2 hardware specialists working on the project. They may not be working for entire three months. You need to make assumptions and efficiently optimise usage of resources. You have three months to develop this application starting from 1st June 2009. At the end of this time the store must be up operational and open to customers. The budget for this project is & #163;150,000. If you finish the project before the deadline, you would be eligible for bonus. Tasks Deliverables:- 1. Identify the major tasks to be carried out. 2. Identify the order the tasks have to be developed. Can some tasks be done in parallel (at the same time) or serially (one task must finish before the next task starts) and break down the major tasks to the lower levels (as far as work package). 3. Identify any major risks that could affect the delivery of the project or cause to exceed the project budget, time scale or increase the required resource. Construct a risk assessment table that will rate the impact of each risk that you identify. Use a critical path analysis to assist you in this identification. 4. Use your initiative to determine how long jobs take providing the superstore is up and operational within three months. 5. Determine the labour costs and provide a WBS containing these costs. The WBS should also content a set of estimates that are mirrored on the WBS and should be capable of ''rolling-up'' to demonstrate the overall cost of the project and the individual cost of each sub deliverable. Create a work breakdown structure (WBS) for the hardware tasks which have tangible outcomes and a process breakdown structure (PBS) for those tasks which are process oriented. Can you link the two structures, i.e. WBS and PBS so one project manager can manage the project or do you have other suggestions? 6. Develop a project plan using Project 2000 or other suitable software which can be found in STM computer labs. (my school name) 7. Include an organisational Breakdown structure (OBS) to demonstrate the communication channels. 8. Include critical path analysis to demonstrate the beginning to end of the project and identify where problems may be. 9. Include a responsibility matrix.