Will the Huntsville Plant Project be ready by the end of 2009, as Janet requires?

If not, will it meet the June 30, 2010 deadline set by the board of directors? What options might be open to ensure these deadlines are met, if the current schedule indicates the Huntsville plant project will not be ready in time?

The project will not meet the deadline of 2009 that was set by Janet Clark. There are numerous variables and task that must be completed in order to start the construction of the building. The construction of the building will begin July 24, 2009 and end in April 29, 2010. The deadline of December 2009 will only be the mid-point of the building construction. The planning phase alone will take ten full weeks to complete before the site preparation can begin. Not meeting the 2009 deadline may create a negative impact on the entire project and could potentially delay or jeopardize the introduction of the new plastic wine containers. Janet Clarks goal was to make sure that the plant was fully operational to introduce the new product. Janets deadline requirement would have assured that the equipment was properly installed and that the new product was properly tested, thus guaranteeing full production capacity by the dead line of June 30, 2010 set by the board directors. The deadline that was set by the board of directors will be met promptly and ahead of time by six days. This will allow the production start-up to begin on June 25, 2010 and distribution by July 2, 2010. The deadline will be met but the production of the new product for the wine industry will not be completely functional. This will then be a missed opportunity for Janet Clark and her production team to convince the board of directors to fund the new product and launch within the 2010 year. The board of directors will probably want to see a full production progress on the southeast market before introducing any new products.

My recommendation would be, to meet with the different team leaders of the specific tasks that are within the Critical Path of the current schedule. By meeting with the leaders that have firsthand experience, the team will be able to better analyze the possibility of realistically shortening the duration for each task. Another possibility would be to bring outside consulting to these meeting if the leader do not have the required knowledge for the specified task or experience. With the tried and true experience of an outside consultant the true duration time could optimistically be calculated resulting in shorter task duration. These corrective actions would first be applied to the Critical Path of the current task lists and then possibly to any other task of lesser time sensibility. To make sure that there will be no future implications that could catch the project team of guard, scheduling weekly Status Review Meetings could be important. In these Status Review meetings, the sole purpose would be to ensure that problems could be resolved before they occur. These meetings can also have an impact on shortening the length of many critical and non-critical tasks. Corrective actions can also take place to once more shorten the duration of many tasks. These meetings could have the benefit to keep reducing the task duration but also to prevent any fall backs or delays on any tasks. (Gido, Clements, 2009, pg377)

Bibliography Gido, J. Clements, J.P. (2009) Successful Project Management: Cengage Learning.