Project Control Theory Assignment

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Texas A&M University *

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717

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English

Date

Feb 20, 2024

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pdf

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Uploaded by EarlWombat3935

CVEN 717 – Engineering Project Control © David N. Ford 1 of 5 Modeling Engineering Project Control Building a Control Theory Model Primary Purposes • Learn to distinguish among and understand the roles of the parts of a project control system • Apply a control theory model to project control • Practice working in teams Deliverables 1. Submit a soft copy of your submittal as a Word document (“.doc x ” extension) or Acrobat file ( “.pdf” e xtension) to the course web page. Include your names at the top of your file. One submittal per team. It does not matter which team member submits the assignment. 2. Include in your submittal “Appendix 1: {TeamName} - Teaming Plan” a copy of the “High Performing Teams Assessment Handout.pdf” file with th e first two pages blank and the third page complete. 3. Each team member must submit a team assessment (soft copy to the course web page only) by the assignment due date and time as directed on the assessment form. No hard copy submittal of team member assessments. Responsible Parties This is a team assignment. Form teams of three persons. Notes 1. Contact your team members as soon as possible and discuss the assignment. Discuss the best approach to the assignment, sub-deliverables, milestones, which team members will develop what and how your team will integrate the work of individual team members (keep in mind that the finished product should read and look like it was developed by a single person), when the team will discuss what the initial work means and how to incorporate that into the deliverable, and generating the submittals. 2. Document your team meetings and include the minutes of those meetings in your submittal as “Appe ndix 2 : Team Meeting Minutes” at the end of your submittal . For each meeting document the date of the meeting, attendees, meeting duration, progress against milestones made, issues discussed and work done related to the assignment (one paragraph per meeting only), and commitments made (who will do or produce what and deliver it to whom by when).

© David N. Ford and Charles M. Wolf 2 of 5 The Challenge You work for Bob at Big Builder Construction. Big Builder has a solid repeat business constructing convenience stores and similar facilities. These and other Big Builder projects include CMU walls that hide trash and loading areas from public view, retain small berms to control stormwater flows, etc. The firm ’s projec ts complete wall construction on schedule and often early, but have repeatedly had problems constructing walls within budget, which creates problems for the projects as a whole. Bob wants you to design a way to manage wall operations to stay in budget. The design of a short typical wall is: 1 Wall Detail The construction activities and quantity takeoff are shown in Appendix 1. Modeling the Control of Wall Construction 1. Based on the design, activities and quantity takeoff briefly (1 paragraph) describe with text the wall construction process. What happens first? What happens next? Then what? Etc. In a second paragraph identify the performance measure of interest and write an equation that defines the performance deficit that a project manager can use throughout wall construction operations. Then describe several possible control actions that Big Builder could use to address the deficit. Examples of control actions if the performance problem was poor quality could include hire more inspectors, train workers, allocate more resources to repairing errors, and automate processes.

© David N. Ford and Charles M. Wolf 3 of 5 2. Select one project control action from those you described above to model the control of constructing a long CMU wall using the generic project control model described in class. Start by creating a table with the following columns: a) control model component number, b) generic control model component name, c) wall construction project control model component name, d) wall construction project control model component description. Include both control model components (boxes) and model information flows (lines typically between the boxes). Use the generic project control model described in class to complete the first two columns. Use your understanding of wall construction to complete the other columns. Hint: Remember that this is a model of whole-wall construction, not the construction of any individual components of a wall. Submit your table and a control model diagram customized to describe your control plan. 3. Assume Bob implements your plan and model for how to control wall construction. Use your model to evaluate your plan. In a separate paragraph each, evaluate each component of your project control model/plan. Describe how that component of your plan/model would be implemented. Is it an established and accepted tool or practice or innovative? How easy or difficult is this component to implement? How expensive, or not, is the component to install/implement, and use? 4. In a separate paragraph assess the benefits and challenges of using your plan/model compared to different (e.g., open, simple closed, adaptive, learning, or some combination) approaches to controlling wall construction. How is it better or worse than a other approaches? What is the most reliable and robust component of your plan/model? Why is it the most reliable or robust? What is the weakest, most risky, part of your control plan? Why? Which component(s) is/are most important to the success of your plan? 5. List and provide a brief description of the few most important (typically undesired) side effects of the project control actions in your plan. After each side effect describe one way that project managers could effectively and efficiently address the side effect to improve project performance. 6. In a separate paragraph describe how your plan might be improved with more or different resources. Which parts could be improved, for example by applying advanced technologies, to improve project performance? What technologies or other means of improvement could be beneficially adopted and how could they be applied? 7. Alter your basic control model for wall construction to describe a significantly different control alternative, one that can better (more effective, more efficient, or both) reduce the performance deficit. Submit a revised control model diagram and a text description of how specific model components are altered or added.

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