Case Study

In June 1993, Kombs Engineering had grown to a company with $25 million in sales. The
business
base consisted of two contracts with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), one for $15 million
and one for $8 million. The remaining $2 million consisted of a variety of smaller jobs for
$15,000
to $50,000 each. The larger contract with DOE was a five-year contract for $15 million per year.
The contract was awarded in 1988 and was up for renewal in 1993. DOE had made it clear that,
although they were very pleased with the technical performance of Kombs, the follow-on
contract
must go through competitive bidding by law. Marketing intelligence indicated that DOE
intended
to spend $10 million per year for five years on the follow-on contract with a tentative award date
of October 1993. On June 21, 1993, the solicitation for proposal was received at Kombs. The
technical requirements of the proposal request were not considered to be a problem for Kombs.
There was no question in anyone’s mind that on technical merit alone, Kombs would win the
contract. The more serious problem was that DOE required a separate section in the proposal on
how Kombs would manage the $10 million/year project as well as a complete description of how
the project management system at Kombs functioned. When Kombs won the original bid in
1988,
there was no project management requirement. All projects at Kombs were accomplished
through
the traditional organizational structure. Line managers acted as project leaders.
In July 1993, Kombs hired a consultant to train the entire organization in project management.
The
consultant also worked closely with the proposal team in responding to the DOE project
management requirements. The proposal was submitted to DOE during the second week of
August. In September 1993, DOE provided Kombs with a list of questions concerning its
proposal.
More than 95 percent of the questions involved project management. Kombs responded to all
questions. In October 1993, Kombs received notification that it would not be granted the
contract.
During a post-award conference, DOE stated that they had no “faith” in the Kombs project
management system. Kombs Engineering is no longer in business.

Questions & Answers

1. Identify financial stakeholders and their interest in this case.

Financial Stakeholder management is the continuous upkeep of associations with those affected
by a task. This idea is involved while setting assumptions for the people who have put time or
cash in a task, or are straightforwardly affected by it. Stakeholders put resources into Kombs
Engineering in view of understanding reasons:
• Have a dedicated standing.
• Having a predominant specialized item.
 • backbreaking Marketing area.
• Having a wide scope of abilities done acquisitions of more modest firms into Acorn.
• rose-shaded to stay serious in the business.
2. Identify the risks for Kombs Engineering.
By concentrating on this contextual analysis, we notice following variables that can turn into the
risky factors:
• Not over the top involvement with taking care of governmental issues contract
• customary authoritative construction
• Decentralized administration whitethorn caused break of correspondence, alternate
point of view, clashing goals and absence of coordination
• No association and synchronicity between R and D and creation innovation
• accept as well as much on their unrivaled mechanical and the market group capacities
• Never fundamentally embraced nor use either type of Project Management
• The vast majority of the supervisors concentrate a lot on KMIP
• No unmistakable common Vision, military mission and fair round of the whole
association of Acorn
• Need correspondence internally association

3. What was the reason for the loss of the contract?

(DOE) neglected to grant the agreement to Kombs Engineering for the basic explanation they needed
confidence in Komb's undertaking the executives frameworks in light of the fact that the inability to give
such a venture the board framework by Kombs . 2-Kombs during the time it was contracted with the
DOE for a time of five years and it never required some investment to foster an appropriate procedure
for overseeing activities and they never delivered that the elements and instruments engaged with
project the board had changed since it was contracted first by DOE in 1988.

- Kombs recruited a worker for hire for a time of one month just prior to marking the agreement who
prepared everybody in the organization regarding the matter of undertaking the executives and this was
not an expert execution and neglected to lay out a line of order on a particular venture the board
framework. Who ought to dealing with the venture's expectations rather than giving specialized heading
to the undertaking group 4-Kombs neglected to execute measures that might have guaranteed an
appropriate framework that consolidated the specialized skill with a legitimate administration
framework to oversee future tasks.

4. Does it seem realistic that proposal evaluation committees could consider project management
expertise to be as important as technical ability?

Indeed it is reasonable that proposition assessment boards could believe project the executives skill to
be just about as significant as specialized capacity in light of the fact that:-
1-The arranging stage is pivotal to the undertaking and venture arranging will determine the objectives
and expectations of the task and the significant exercises that will be performed to accomplish those
objectives.

2-project the executives includes overseeing and driving assorted individuals to finish hings and the
specialized skill as a piece of the organization will t be in a situation to accomplish and successfully deal
with a task to its convincing stage .

3-For this situation, project the executives will include in the exploration stage that lays out whether the
venture is doable ,the dangers might face, and key achievement measures. This is beyond the realm of
possibilities in an organization that depends on its master as it were. Subsequently, associations require
outside assets that can influence the nature of the results in the agreement .

5. Could Kombs Engineering bankruptcy have been avoided? Suggest your approach.

Acorn is in good shape. From 1996 until 1998 Acorn had gone completed multiple times authoritative
changes utilizing different sorts variety and match of Organizational substantial design yet just issues
actually happen. Thus, Acorn should keep on refining the construction. They should continue onward
with the business to have a steady income. They ought to likewise support new ability this will hold
regions back from battling about great individual. Besides, execution standard should be general no
matter how you look at it to keep the assessments steady.