OPERATIONAL PLANNING

IN CLASS NOTES

23 03 2021
 Work Breakdown Structure: Is an arborescence tree of the whole final product.
It is a roadmap of the project that describe all the list of feature (and performance)
that makes the final deliverable.
 The complexity of the project isn’t necessarily coming from the complexity of the
product.
 It’s from most of the time the misunderstanding of the scope of the project itself,
of the stakeholders, of the interacting events & stakeholders during the project
development. Then the difficulty to organize it.
 For an organization, a project should respond to a specific need either from the
inside than from any external forces.
 The list of priorities impacts the planning of the project. In other words, an
activity will take more time or more resource than another activity.
 In Planning you need to understand and know the trade off between the level of
complexity and the level of skills that you have in hands. To use as their best the
smarts that you have.

06 04 2021
 WBS leads to PLANNING.
 Planning contains: Activities, weight, schedule, sequence, resources
 Planning organizes the Work that has to be done in order to achieve the
deliverable (quality, cost, time)
 Quality is a set of features (performance, capacity, design,…) included into the
final deliverable.
WBS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p69K5zf3L8

13 04 2021
Debrief on PERT Ballistic Missile Video
 How effective it was to use a Planning system.
 List of activities that project contains.
 The sequence of each activity.
 Always from the first to the final one.
  It shows a Visual Network diagram.
 Each activity has 3 components: Duration, the precedents, the followings.
What define an activity is: It’s duration time which give in some way the ‘’weight’’ of
the activity (how big it is, how complicated it is, how many resources it will require, how
much it will cost). And also, where it is located into the network (after what & before
what)
 How to determine the expected duration of the activity based on 3 times: The
pessimistic one, the optimistic one and the most likely one.
 Each of those 3 times have a weight (1;4;1)
 Doing this then we are able looking at the planning backward to determine the
Critical Path which tells us the total duration of the project.

EXAMPLE:
O: 50
ML: 90
P: 155
PERT: (1x 50) + (4x90) + (1x155) = 565/6 = 94
(50+90+155) = 295/3 = 98

 The most likely time is the historical measure of completion of the activity in the
most perfect ideal conditions (in term of performance)
 Those numbers don’t happen by odd!!! It is the Management job of the Project
Manager.

STEP #1: Define the activities

 The Project scope is to deliver a final Product (service) to the customer (user)
 The final Product contains a list of features (functionalities) that define what is
really the product customer wants.
 Those features will be organized into an arborescence tree planning in a set of
tasks (works, job, activities)
 We will use a process mapping approach to understand the flows of the project.
 In that way we determine what contribute to the final product and what doesn’t
contribute to it. Also, where could we make some gain and what is really
mandatory.
 WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT WE KNOW IN ADVANCE EXACTLY
WHAT THE FINAL PRODUCT SHOULD LOOK LIKE (WHAT CUSTOMER
WANTS) AND WHAT WILL BE THE PATH TO REACH IT.

15 04 2021

The Planning system:

 Time duration for each activity
 Earliest Time to Start
 Earliest time to finish.
 Latest time to start.
 Latest time to finish.
It is important to understand:
 Where any risk potential has the most significant impact
 Where it may be valuable to add or reduce resources.
The cost of project is based on the total time the project will require.
The total time define the required resources needed to perform the project on time.
EXAMPLE:
Project A 10 month = 1 000 000 $
Project A 8 month = 1 200 000 $
Project A 15 month = 750 000 $

 So usually, it is needed to accelerate the project by accelerating Activities by

increasing resources allowed.
 It is a trade-off approach that the cost of the acceleration is less than the benefits
of this acceleration.
 What is most the time not considered is to increase the time of some activities, not
into the critical path, by reducing the resources and the cost associated with it.
 However….

20 04 2021
CASE STUDY BOEING 777
 Market pressures generate the project.
  Need to align internal processes to the project scope.
 Aircraft development project is a long time of managing and spend. The cash
inflow return is not sure.
 As for many big projects, prior to start a new Aircraft development you need to
make a pre-feasibility study based on long range forecast.
 What is the deliverable? A new aircraft 777
 Who are the clients? Airlines
 Who are the users? Passengers & Airlines
 New approach in managing project close to the Agile approach: Transparency and
customer involved since the design porecess.
 Airlines are interested by:
Passengers’ capacity
Operating cost: Maintenance
 Sharing information with suppliers at earliest stage means less control to be made,
improvement of quality.
 Differentiation points at the latest stage: Modularity
 Agile approach involve totally the team members.

Comparison A350 – 777-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-TjKFbghfE

https://www-cnbctv18-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cnbctv18.com/views/
sustainable-air-travel-whats-next-and-can-india-lead-the-way-8957111.htm/amp

04 05 2021

Type of constraints planning:

 People = Skills
 Material & Services = Suppliers, vendors
 Equipment = Capacity (lift, speed, …)

2 examples: Mining Project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad8Zot71_cY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK0iIYsBjOQ

Constraints in planning resources:

 Quantity = Cost
 Quality = Performance
Time constrained Project: You manage resources.
Resources constrained Project: You manage time (schedule)
Most of project needs to manage both. Project management means constraints
management