Executive Summary
Project management is the intricate process of planning, controlling and implementing a project. The study is a quite wide and transcends various fields of study. To narrow the field of project management, scholars have subdivided it into smaller sub topics. This research is focused on project management in facility design and location. The paper identifies what an operational facility is and its importance to the project. Research to understand design and location factors was carried out and reported as well. In conclusion, the paper analyses the importance of location and design of the facility to the entire project success.
Facility Design and Location
Project management is the formal processes of planning, managing and controlling resources and activities to be undertaken to ensure a successful delivery of predetermined goals. The goals to be attained are stipulated in a project, which is a temporary undertaking that is time constrained and has a commencement and conclusion so to bring out an added quality to a product (Bradley, 2011). The greatest challenge for the project manager is to deliver the requirements of the project within the specified time while accomplishing the expected results. Therefore a good project management strategy will help the management in controlling the cost, keep the time schedule in delivering a quality product at the end of the project.
Project management is divided into several phases depending on the kind of the project being undertaken. The main phases used in traditional project management include project initiation phase, planning and design phase, project execution, monitoring and control and project conclusion (Robin, 2011). The planning phase of the project is one of the widest in project management. It is during planning that project budgets, goals, schedules, facilities and resources to be used in the project are determined. Planning for an operational facility is also carried out at this stage. Resources will be apportioned to planning a facility for use in the project.
The Operational Facility
In general, all projects make use of an operational facility, or a location where the project team will work. According to William & Rooiji (2010), organizations ensure that once a project has commenced, a project secretariat is set up so as to manage all the activities regarding the project. The operation facility will differ depending on the kind of business the organization is involved in. For instance, in a manufacturing and construction enterprise, Bradley (2011) illustrates that the operational facility makes most part of the business as it provides the environment needed to implement the industrial objective stipulated in the project. It provides the premises which house the production machinery worked on by the employees to convert inputs into finished products. Manufacturing firms take keen interest on the operational facility so as to achieve a cost-effective process that makes efficient use of the financial, energy, human and input resources available to the firm. The location of such a facility may not be that important since industrial firms in most cases deal directly with the end users. Therefore, factors such as labor, energy requirements to drive the equipment and availability of raw materials determine the location of the facility.
On the other hand, for a non-manufacturing enterprise, the operation facility is the core of the operation as it provides the center for coordinating all activities geared at attaining project goals. Depending on the kind of business, the operational facility might be the major aspect of the business as it will be the point of customer interaction (Sang, 2009)). Robin(2011), agress with Dismore and continues to assert that in the case of project management companies, the operational facility might be best located within the customers premise for easier coordination. Here, the project management team gets the views and feedback directly from the customer organization and its staff. This will minimize the rent and other costs associated with running the project.
Facility Design
The design of a facility is an important part in managing and running a project. To design the facility to be used in project management, a major factor to be considered is size of the project to be undertaken. Some projects, such as huge infrastructure projects may require thousands of employees to work for several years, even decades, while other projects may take a few weeks or months. Therefore, determining the scope of the project may help determine the floor space necessary for a project facility. To guide the process of facility design, some design parameters have been formulated to guide this process.
One of such design parameters includes accommodation required at the beginning of the project. At the initial phase of project implementation, the staff needed is usually quite a small number. Thus, to jumpstart the project, the facility will be needed to host the small staff and initial equipment such as computers used in the design.
Consequently, as the project progresses, the future accommodation requirements will be considered in designing the facility. In this sense, the kind of the project and estimated time it will take is taken into account. The size and design of the facility will also be determined by the equipment required to carry out the project. For example, a manufacturing project will need a big space in a hall such as a warehouse. Designing the facility will be veered towards a big empty space on a ground floor. Other projects such as software development will need separation from the several groups and can be in separate rooms or floors. For instance, those working on the interface could be on a separate floor from those working on the system kernel execution unit and so on (Sang-Hoon Lee, 2011).
Other parameters that will direct the project management team in facility design includes budgetary limitations of the project and final completion date of the project. Projects tend to have extremely stringent budgets. The facility is also apportioned resources in the budget and it’s the challenge of the project manager to ensure that the design of the facility falls within the budget.
Once there are guidelines on how to design the facility, there are basic essential elements that a project manager needs to consider in designing the facility. These include the accessibility of the facility, heating, lighting and ventilation. The manager should also consider how garbage from the facility would be disposed and possibilities of recycling some waste from the facility. Safety consideration and office administrative activities should be considered during implementation.
Facility Location
After undertaking a thorough design process to ascertain blueprints, a suitable location must be identified to set up the project facility. While there may not be any explicit rules governing the location of the facility, some factors will help guide in pinpointing the location.
One of the main factors that will determine the location of the facility is the inter-company integration. Kuo-Liang Lin(2011), demonstrates that projects are commonly integrated between several departments in a company or several companies. Therefore, in order to ensure a working integration between these several companies and departments, the facility must be strategically located. If the client is a big corporation, locating the project facility within the premise of the client might be appropriate. This will facilitate meetings and appraisals as well as getting customer feedback will be much faster.
A project facility will need to be located where there is easy availability of labor. Some projects call for the manufacture of big mechanical and structural components. This will require so much labor and thus locating the facility where labor is easily available is important. It is necessary to compare the availability of such labor to cost of the labor.
Transport networks for shipping finished products to the customers are another factor that must be considered in determining the location of the facility. Transporting project employees to the site or facility must also be considered for the success of the project. If the project is carried out in a remote location, such as construction of dams, then housing the workers on site might be the only option left. It might also be necessary to acquire enough transport facilities for shipping the products (Bradley, 2011).
Projects involving manufacturing processes make use of raw materials as the input to obtain the desired product. This means that the leading cost of the project is the cost of the raw materials. Locating the facility near the suppliers where raw materials are easily available at a reasonable cost will be vital. Further, the facility should also be located where delivery of such material will be timely and in good form.
In determining the location facility, project managers should also consider the potential of expanding the facility in future. Evaluating long term requirements of the company and the project will help identify an expandable location. Some facilities at the beginning of the project simply provide a starting point but later end up to be operation points of big conglomerates.
Federal government regulations and zoning rules is one of the most important aspects to consider when developing and project facility. Governments through their local administrative centers exert controls over the kind of businesses and buildings then can be constructed on specific locations. States also have their own regulations regarding noise and air pollution, emission of green house gases and disposal of effluence (Robin, 2011). These rules should be examined thoroughly and should provide a basis of location of a project facility.
Point-Rating Method.
Once these essential factors have been considered, there is a method used to determine the most appropriate location for your project facility. This method is referred to as the Point-Rating method. The method involves an assessment of the fore mentioned location factors. Upon evaluation of the factors, each factor is allocated a relative points or weight, normally between 0 and 100, depending on the suitability of the location. Assigning low points means that such a factor does not favor the located of the facility in that location and vice-versa. The scores of the different locations are summed up and the location with the highest point is chosen to be most appropriate location (Sang, 2009).
Responsibility and Authority Allocation in the Facility.
After setting up a well designed and properly situated facility, it is important to allocate accountability and responsibility to ensure that the facility remain functional during the project period. It involves allocating space to the supervisors of the different portions of the facility. Supervisors will be in charge of sharing duties and responsibilities among the employees in the allocated facility. Knowledgeable and experienced people should head facilities sensitive and vital to the project. For instance, in software development projects the employee in charge of server should be highly skilled to manage the servers properly as well as the ability to perform quick recovery procedures. Such a server room is probably the most important part of a software project.
Conclusion
This research has thoroughly expounded the importance of an operational facility to project implementation. Study undertaken has proved that projects are carried in a location housing the necessary equipment to implement the project. Such a project housing facility should be designed in manner convenient with the project. The location of a project facility also is also vital to the success of the project. Factors are used to evaluate the suitability of a location. Location determinant factors include inter-company location, availability of cheap labor and project materials, room for future expansion and federal rules over business facilities. In case of several options for locations on facilities, a point-rating method is used to discern the most viable option. Setting up a facility at the ideal location is only completed after allocating responsibility to qualified personnel to maintain such an important facility. The research into facility and location has provided deep understanding into project management. A well designed facility and appropriately situated would a good start in ensuring a successful project. It also gives the managers of the project a good environment to work from.
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