Managing a Professional Engineering Project

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 Project
Plan
By Ghazi AlMour – 18120013
Supervisor: E. Ghassan Dadoukh, E. Zaid Haymour

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Introduction

Jordan, in 2019 number of restaurants increased to 20K restaurant (1).

Where all of them are competing for quality and fast service. They also compete
in the technology they are using for better and sustainable equipment, where
they use IOT devices for monitoring the services and having feedback from the
customers.

After a doing market research for what it needs and what pain they are
into. A lot of restaurants have some problems checking and monitoring the gas
cylinders used for furnaces especially when they have large amount of orders, if
the gas cylinder is down, they will have to give up a lot of time in changing it.

Moreover, in the past years there were a lot of explosions accidents

happened because of leaking gas. According to RO’YA news report, these
explosion accidents are caused because of gas leaking from LPG cylinders. A
cylinder in an equipment was leaking gas all night then the gas ratio increased in a
closed area which caused a big bomb could be explode by a small light turned on.
(2)

Solution
Our Project “SAGA: Gas Control System” let the restaurants that use LPG
gas cylinders, to control and monitor cylinders and to detect any leaking of LPG
gas could happen. Also, to monitor how much does each gas cylinder absorb.

SAGA GCS Starts with device to put on all Gas cylinders used in the
restaurants. Then after the device is set, it automatically connects to our cloud
server using a special ID and Password provided for every customer.

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 This device consists of an electric valve, LPG gas Detecting sensor, gas
Thermometer, flowmeter, battery (switched every couple of months), and the
controlling unit.

While the devices are being set up, A desktop and Smartphone application
are being installed. These applications are
connected to the same cloud server that the
devices are connected into, and displays the
following readings and options to an easy,
interactive Graphical User Interface:
1) Gas Flow Rate for each used cylinder.
2) The price of gas is being paid per hour
depending on the flowrate.
3) The Temperature of the gas
4) A percentage of how much gas is
remaining in the cylinder.

Another thing in our product, before

an LPG Cylinder is ran out, the application
displays a notification to the admin, and
shows the estimated time until it completely
run off (depending on data that we will have
at the runtime), at the main time gas
cylinders resellers would come and replace
the empty cylinders, that’s where reliability
comes in!

In addition, if there was any gas leaking, beside pushing notification to the
admin of leaking gas. All the gas cylinders are shut off directly and pushing leaking
emergency alarm.

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 In addition to the main system, SAGA GCS is designed for easy control
access, addition of plugins, and also it is easily accessible for future
improvements.

One of these plugins, we saw that a lot of restaurants put the Gas cylinder
in unsafe places (Usually in front or under the flame) so they open and close it, so
we made a variable switch for the chef so he could open the gas as he wants.

Literature Review

After finding solutions for problems, there has to be research for other
company’s (competitors) products and their solutions. And a Target market
Research.
After searching and finding our competitors, we didn’t find an exact same
product with the same functions but there are a lot of other similar product.

A company called Smart Cylinders has a management system which reduce

h delivery service of getting co2 gas cylinders. And they have an additional sensor
which monitor how much left in a cylinder and they come and replace it. *3

Another company is called b24iot has a specialty that they have monitoring
system for different types of gas cylinders. *4

For the Market research, we made a short survey for the market. We
realized that a lot of new restaurants use electrical equipment. But we also have
seen that a lot of traditional and old restaurants can’t give away using LPG Gas
and that’s where our target restaurant is.

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 After we asked them some questions about their pains while cooking and
managing the restaurant, and according to what we got we developed new
features our product.

Feasibility study: (11)

A feasibility study is an analysis that takes all of a project's relevant factors into
consider—including economic, technical, legal, etc.…—to complete the project
successfully. Usually mangers use feasibility study to recognize the pros and cons of
undertaking a project before they invest a lot of time and money into it.

In this project, we need to make a preliminary study to understand the aspect of

our project and identify the elements and roadmap. Also, we need to check our
competitors in all market.

We have chosen The Gas Control system between other 3 project ideas because
when we saw that the other projects are not feasible in different ways, 2 of the projects
didn’t have enough customers in the market, and the last project was very expensive
cost that the costumer couldn’t afford it.

In GCS, our strength is in our market in Jordan, it is very big that it could be
expanded, because a lot of restaurants uses and worried about gas explosions after
doing a small survey. Which makes our targets a niche market.

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 The second thing after preliminary study is preparing the income statement, (How
are we going to get profit from the project). We divided this into 2 selling packages as
follow:
1. The Device (Does the following functions):
a. Turn on/off switch
b. Calculate flow rate and cost per time unit
c. Calculate gas temperature
d. Calculate gas pressure
e. Detect Gas leaking
f. Monitoring gas cylinders
g. 1-year warranty
h. Limited cloud server account

2. Annually subscription: (it could be 2-year contract, then yearly)

a. Free devices + free Installation and configuration
b. All features above
c. Fast Maintenance and check up
d. Voice assistant
e. Fast gas cylinders replacement
f. Unlimited cloud server account and data storage

After that, we calculate and estimate the costs of operation and manufacturing:
 Cost to manufacture: $30.25
 App and web interface dev: $40,000
 Servers: $1000-10,000 Annually (For a small to a very large cloud database of
users)
 Voice assistant:
 maintenance and call center employees: 6 employees – 300 JOD per – ~22,000
JOD annually

Device cost:
Name Cost estimate (USD) /1K Description Photo

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 Electronics (5) 5 Microcontrolle
r has an
internet
connection
Pressure sensors 5 Used for
(6)(7)
calculating
flowrate +
Pressure

Electric motor 3 For turning on

and gears (8) and off the
valve

Milled block 10

Enclosure (9) 1 Enclosure

Battery 1 Normal AA
batteries

Options interface 0.5 The connector

Gas sensor 1 External gas

sensor

Temperature sensor 0.25

Industrial Push 0.5

button

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Other materials 3 All other
needed
materials and
packaging

Cost and Budget

Calculating cost and budget is a part of the feasibility study, where it shows how
much cost on the company and how much the customer will buy it. the price may be
cheap for a valuable feature, that’s when the customer would buy it. but it may be
expensive will basic features that’s where the customer get away from the product /
service.
The Costs are divided to 2 types: Direct costs, and total costs.
Fixed costs: the costs that do not vary with the volume of production. It remains the
same even if no goods or services are produced, and therefore, cannot be avoided.
Variable costs: They are the costs that are associated with the number of goods or
services the company produces.
Fixed cost:
- Plastic Injection mold and other tooling - $ 7,000 per 10,000 enclosures
- Engineering (Hardware and software) R&D costs - $ 80,000 to pass MVP stage
- 15% Safety factor for R&D - $ 12,000
- Office rent and set-up expenses - $ 12,500 Annually, $5,000 to furnish
- Administrative costs (Wages) - $ 70,000 Annually
- Maintenance wage and tools cost - $ 25,000 Annually, $3,000 for tools
- Maintenance van rent and fuel - $ 10,000 Annually
- Independent testing and certifications - $ 20,000 Once
- Factory search and related travel - $ 15,000 Once
- Legal and Registration fees - $ 2,000 Once
- Bills and taxes - $ 5,000 per year
- Prototyping costs - $ 15,000 once
- Marketing - $ 5,000 for pre-launch marketing
Total fixed cost: $280,000 for the first year
~$150,000 thereafter (with new costs not shown above)
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Variable cost:

- Plastic enclosure - $ 0.3 per enclosure

- Component and material cost - $ 20 per product
- Machined block - $ 10 per product
- Servers and APIs (Voice assistant) - $ 0.1 per year per user
- Assembly line operational costs - $ 1 per product
- Marketing expenses - $ 2 per user

Total variable cost for 5,000 devices made with 5% rejection rate (Using 1k pricing):
$175,000
Approximate price for 20,000 units: $400,000
Total cost for first year with 5000-unit inventory: $ 455,000
Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan
Activity
2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2021
Mechanical
$4,200 $4,200 $4,200 $4,200 $4,200 $4,200
Engineering
Electrical
$3,300 $3,300 $3,300 $3,300 $3,300 $3,300
Engineering
Software
$5,800 $5,800 $5,800 $5,800 $5,800 $5,800
development
Pre-factory
$5,000 $5,000
prototyping
Factory $15,00
scouting 0
Prototyping $5,000
App Focus
$500 $500
group testing
Marketing $1000 $1000 $1000
Independent $20,00
testing 0
Total cost: $134,000

Compliance with Laws and ethics

The only measure of the product’s success is having a positive feedback from our
customer. And to let the customer have our product in their hands, there are some laws
and regulations have to deal and have it in consideration.

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 Our product focuses on having as many as the cylinders in the workstation but
according to standards AS4332-2004 to store the LPG cylinders (storing less than 500
liters of LPG)

However, using an electric valve for shutting on and off LPG Cylinders, the EN-
14245 are the safety standers for self-closing LPG valve. Also, AN9003- A Users Guide to
Intrinsic Safety where safety is our first aim, we have to follow the intrinsic safety of
Humans and materials.

Following laws and regulations isn’t the only thing every company has to do,
having ethics is an important thing has to do for the loyalty of county and its citizens.

The first thing that it is has to be, is supporting local market by getting
supplies from local market especially with the economic crisis that’s happening in
our country; and get away from the conflict materials (conflict materials are the
goods that are bought from disputed and corrupted areas like Israel), so supplying
LPG gas from Israel is not ethic for us at all.

Another character that we all should have is getting away from hiring
foreign people, because the unemployment percentage of teenagers and adults is
huge in Jordan. And also, even when hiring people they have to managed in an
ethical right way and getting away from salve labor.

Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage helps us to see the difference between us and the other
companies in the market. What service are they providing and how are we better from
them or the opposite.
Name SAGA EVOS Paygo Nugas
Safety Switch  X  
Flow Rate(use  X  
rate)
Electric Valve  X  X
Gas level    
monitaring

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Cost per unit  x X 
time
Leak Detection  X  X
Connected To    
internet
Fire  X X X
extinguishing
notification
Gas detection  X X X
GPS X  X 
Total Points 9 3 6 6

As results, we had the highest total between other competitors which makes us unique
and have other features than the others.

Competitive Analysis

Every company launches in the market has to think about the competitive
analysis, where there are a lot of tools used for making the competitive analysis
but porter’s five forces is the most popular between them. Basically, it is the way
where no other competitor clone or compete the product as much as possible.

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 Baraining power of suppliers Threats Of New Entrants:
Most of our product's suppliers are Anyone who has ideas in this field could enter.
international from diffrent contries, but But in SAGA, we thought of every path that
because we trust our local market, the could anyone enter to be the competition
customisable parts such as enclosure and the ours.
machined mild steel are all costme made from
our local manufacturer, which makes it more
reliable for us and easy-contact withRivalry
them. among existing
competitors

threats of subtitute products Bargaining power of buyers

There are few subtitues and products are
similar in the market, but our product has
more features than others with a very
comfortable prices; especiallly with the
premium subscribsion.
Because our market is neish, our buyers are not
very much, and because of our subscribtions
and the trust we will give to our customers that
would be loyal to each other

PESTEL Analysis
PESTEL analysis is a tool that is used to analyses and monitor the macro-
environmental factors that have an impact on the company.
PESTEL Table as follows:
PESTEL Analysis Threat Opportunity Effect on the SAGA gas device Rating
(Macro level)
Political
Raise in gas prices - More sales due to customers wanting to 3
regulate gas use
foreign trade - Increase in prices, less sales 4
policies and
customs
Government - Launch will be easier, smoother, and will 4
support for require less capital
launching
entrepreneurial
projects

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Economic
Economic - Less purchasing power will mean less sales 5
decline/Recession
Labor rates - Needing to pay more for wages will impact 2
increase our cost structure
Social
People might be - If people are afraid that the system will not 2
hesitant to add IOT be reliable or cause them extra trouble in
to their workflows their already busy workflows, adoption
might be slower.
Product will - The public opinion will always lean towards 5
increase the safety safer operation
factor of business
operation
Word of mouth - - Much cheaper than marketing, word of 5
mouth is often more trusted and can lead to
increased sales if our system does what is
expected. However, if it falls below
expectations, this could hurt the sales.
Technology
Automation - New workflows allowed by timing; 3
Automation
Expandability - Hardware and software can be expanded to 3
add functionality after the initial design
Subscription - An optional subscription would allow us to 4
gain an extra revenue stream, offering
premium care and preventative
maintenance.
Electrical hobs and - If restaurants stop using gas, we will need 5
other gas to shift the marketing and functionality of
alternatives our product, resulting in major costs
Environment
The restaurant - Grease and other materials could get into 1
environment can sensors buttons and interfere with the
be harsh working of the device
Legal
Certification - Getting the necessary certifications could be 2
expensive and take a long time
Patent and - No other device can have the same feature 2
trademark set in the same way

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 SWOT
A SWOT analysis is a very useful and easy tool, and powerful too! it helps developing the
business strategy. It also a useful tool for improvements and developing team’s

Strengths: Weakness:
Durable Might be expensive
for the restaurants to
No direct competitor implement up front
Increases both the Will need market
safety factor and education, especially
productivity for old mindsets

Threats:
Opportunities:
Custom could hold the
Governmental support
parts for a long time
of product adoption
resulting in missed
within various industries
deadlines
Good connections
Customs could impose
Most needed machinery very high fees on parts
is provided by the
Market adoption could
university
be hard to achieve

weaknesses.

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Target Market
Finding and searching the market if it was local or international is the most important
step, because developing a product for a specific market then after that you sell it for
another is a very big mistake a lot of people had done.

After searching and making a quick basic survey, our target customers are
restaurants that use LPG Gas Cylinders for their equipment daily. Like, Habiba Sweets,
Rawan Cake, Shawarma 3lSag, Fries shop, etc.…

Stakeholders’ Analysis

Team
Members

Supervisors
Third Party
and
companies
consultants

Stakholders
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Investors Suppliers
 Costomers

Team Member:
Ghazi Almour | Anas malas | Sara Dabbas | Abdullah Jaber | Baker Alzoubi

Supervisors and Consultants:

Eng. Ghassan S. Dadokh & Eng. Zaid Haymoor
Suppliers:
Amazon.com, Alibaba, Mikroelectron, Plusivo.jo, AlItihad Plastic Factory
Customers:
Restaurants
Third Parties:
PCB manufacture, Injection plastics factory
Investors:
Companies who invest and develop start-ups

Risk Management:
Risk management is a way to help solving different kind of problems in the future.
Knowing it in present to be prepared for it in the future.

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 1. Manufacturing problems: if there were any defects or an error in manufacturing
molds or PCB design.
a. Production line design: Having problems in the production line could be
solved by choosing right and qualified operation team.
b. Enclosure mold failure: Having any defects in the enclosure mold or need
any changes could be solved by prototyping before massive manufacturing
and choosing right mold designer
c. Electrical Components failure: choosing right reliable certified components
for the product with warranty.
2. Legal
a. Customs and taxes: taxes for goods that are shipped from outside the
country
i. Government may increase taxes: signing a long-time contract with
the government for selling the product without any problems in a win
to win situation. Also, In supplying gas cylinders
b. Product Licensing
i. Government may not or delay the license of the product: ask and
listen to feedbacks about other product’s certification and licensing
3. Market
a. Costumers not needing the product
i. Marketing strategy: if the target market is not as interactive as
possible, marketing strategy has to make.

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

A useful tool to breakdown the big jobs to small ones to be easily managed and
done faster.
(WBS attached next page)

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Time Management
Time management is so important to keep the work balanced and organized.
There are lot of ways to mange the project time, but the most popular ones are the
Gantt chart and the Critical path Analysis.
Gantt chart, is an old method where the chores are put with the start and end due time
and then bar lines are being drawn in a chart. Nowadays there are templates in different
applications that do this for you.

(Attached Gantt Chart next page)

The other way of organizing time, is the critical path analysis. It is different than Gantt
chart that it shows the longest path of work that the chores can’t exceed it or there will
be delaying in finishing the tasks.
There are tasks are done in parallel with each other, but there is one long series of tasks
if it was delayed the submission will delay, but the others will have some extra time to
be delayed.

(attached in next page)

Key Performance indicators (KPIs)

KPIs are the critical (key) indicators of progress toward a planned result. they provide a
focus for strategic and operational improvements, create an analytical basis for decision
making and also help focus attention on what is most important. As Peter Drucker
famously said, “What gets measured gets done.” (12)

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 1. How much time the system will be sat up.
2. How much time does the empty gas cylinder is being replaced.
3. How much is the efficiency of gas leak detection.
4. How many restaurants will use and trust our service

Performance Review:
SAGA Gas Control system will not stop at this point, there are a lot of improvements in
many sections we developed in meetings. There are improvements like connecting GCS
to Alexa and another assistant. However, this GCS may develop more and more to suit
public home and offices and also the GCS for different types of gasses for hospitals and
labs.
It was a really nice semester with the MPEP. I learned many things in project
management and in electronics basic principles.
For SAGA GCS, working with a team was really tired. Because everyone has his own
university materials and it was a little bit complicated to find suitable time to meet. And
what I learnt from working with new people, they may look very nice to u at first but
when they have the advantage of getting something they go away do not caring about
the others.
As a founder of a startup called Mlawan, I learn a lot of things in leadership and cost
estimation and feasibility study, and that’s the most thing I learnt in this course.

References:
1- ‫ الصبي‬: ‫يبلغ الردن يف المطاعم عدد‬ ‫الصبي‬.‫ نيوز المدينة“ي‬- ‫حي‬ 20 ‫حي‬
‫الف‬.” Almadenahnews.Com, ‫الصبي‬ 2 ,‫ حي‬Oct. 2018, https://bit.ly/38swuLS
[Accessed 8 Dec. 2019].

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2- ‫[ الردن في "الغاز اسطوانات" انفجار حقيقة هذه‬online] Available at:
https://bit.ly/2YALjqW [Accessed 8 Dec. 2019].

3- Smartcylinders.com. (2019). Smart Cylinders - Simplifying gas delivery services.

[online] Available at: https://www.smartcylinders.com/ [Accessed 9 Dec. 2019].
4- .PLGivreS ‫“ي‬B24IoT.”‫ي‬B24iot.Com, 2017, www.b24iot.com/. Accessed 9 Dec.
2019.
5- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/Logitech_K760_-
_BabyPhoton_Main_PCB_-_rear_view-3840.jpg/1200px-Logitech_K760_-
_BabyPhoton_Main_PCB_-_rear_view-3840.jpg
6- https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/honeywell-sensing-and-productivity-
solutions/24PCGFA6G/480-4160-ND/2831911
7- https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sensirion-ag/SDP32-125PA-TR-
250PCS/1649-1079-2-ND/6820041
8-
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Compactand_electric_valve_
actuator.jpg
9-https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Etiquette_num
%C3%A9rique_industrielle_IP65.png
10- https://freesvg.org/img/aa.png
11- https://www.asha.org/practice/feasibility/
12- https://kpi.org/KPI-Basics

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