The value of developing a schedule to guide the execution of a procurement project may not be obvious at first. Developing a schedule does a number of things for the procurement officer. First, it provides a simple and quick view of the important milestones and their dates of occurrence. Second, it serves as a tool that the procurement officer can use to manage the overall project because the schedule shows all of the activities (tasks), their duration, and their sequence. At a glance, it is easy to see what the major activities are and the dependencies among them.

 

Developing a schedule begins with identifying the necessary inputs: task list, work breakdown schedule, and milestones. The first step to create schedule is to sequence the order of the tasks. A network or logic diagram (i.e., a simple graphic of the tasks linked in a logical sequence) is an effective tool to use for this. At this point, identifying the dependencies between tasks is what is important. Once the network diagram is complete, it is useful to examine it, looking for tasks that have multiple inputs. These are "choke points" that can signal potential breakdowns, delays, in project execution.

The next step in schedule creation is converting the list of tasks into activities with defined durations. This is a difficult step because there is an inherent tension between the person estimating the task duration and management's desire to minimize the overall schedule; time is money. There are many strategies that claim to find the optimal task duration. Some are described in the textbook, and colleagues probably have their own tricks of the trade.

Once these steps are accomplished, the overall schedule can be created. Individuals who have experience in leading procurement projects should review the overall schedule to identify potential problem areas that may need to be reworked or at least monitored closely. Finally, the schedule is published to the procurement project team in accordance with the communications plan discussed in a later module.

During the development of the schedule, there may be a task or set of tasks that have to do with investigating whether the procurement will require portions to be executed in countries outside of the United States. In today's global supply chain world, there may be potential suppliers who can produce the necessary components or provide the services and are located in another country. If the organization's policies allow the use of foreign suppliers, it will be important to determine whether there are different regulations governing procurements in the countries where potential suppliers are located. Often, this is done as part of a vendor pre-selection or qualification process.

Lastly, while one is evaluating and qualifying potential suppliers, it is an opportune time to begin the process of creating the selection criteria and tool that will eventually be used to evaluate the bid responses received. It is likely that the development of this tool will have started earlier in the process, when the procurement requirements were being defined; however, additional concerns and criteria may be identified. These include import-export duties, export-import restrictions, International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and many other potential pitfalls. One may ask, "Why would export duties or restrictions apply to my procurement? I am buying things, not selling things." That may be true, but sometimes those "things" are actually systems comprised of multiple pieces. It is not hard to imagine buying computer components from Taiwan, mechanical components from Germany, software packages from Ireland, and glass components from India. The company packages all of these components together into a new widget and wants to sell it to customers in China, only to discover exportation of this widget is restricted because high-precision mechanical components from Germany are used. That would be a very inopportune time to discover this.

• What inputs are necessary to build a schedule?
• Briefly summarize the steps involved in creating a schedule.
• What is the difference between task effort and task duration?
• Why are milestones used in addition to task activities in a schedule?
• What is the purpose of a table or GANTT-style diagram of the schedule?

 

Answer:

Five main inputs needed to construct a project schedule include: 

Determination of the budget for the project.

The impact of the budget of the project.

Effective Budget Principles.

Create a budget for a project.

Challenges to the popular budget

Steps involved in creating a schedule are :

Step 1: define the activities of the schedule

Take your Job Breakdown Structure (WBS) and decompose it into plan tasks.

Take each WBS job kit and determine what activities to build it. For example, if your work package consists of "configure new computer hardware," your schedule activity might include "network configuration," "video card installation," "apps installation," and then "client setup."

Step 2: Activity sequence

Remember to go back to high school where a lot of pictures were given and you had to find out their order. You had to determine what picture the first operation, the second activity and so on represented? Well, this is precisely the second step. In the second step, we sequence the schedule by simply putting it in the order in which it must take place. For eg, maybe first you need to install the video card, then configure network settings, install applications, and then set the mail client. Two or more operations may be carried out concurrently in some situations. Perhaps we can setup the mail client during the installation of other applications. This stage is where we look at various forms of time dependences, for example, how each of these tasks relates to each other, start-to-start, end-to-end and begin-to-end.

Step 3: Estimate the resources required for the business

The third step is to estimate the resources needed to carry out each operation. This involves the assessment of necessary team members, financial resources and equipment. For each operation, these resource needs should be chosen before calculating the length of each activity as the next phase.

Step 4: Estimate the length of each activity

This phase allows you and your team to analyze the length of each operation. The following methods will quantify these estimates:

Expert judgment: by giving someone familiar or knowledgeable with what is required to perform a specific task.

Analogous calculation: a top-down estimate strategy is used when you look at similar projects within the company in order to estimate how long a specific task should take.

Parametric estimation: This is essentially an estimate. For example, you might know that installing a software application takes an average of 10 minutes. If the installation activity involves the installation of six applications, you can use the parametric approximation to estimate that the installation of all applications takes about 6 times 10 minutes or 60 minutes.

Three-point estimation: a fantastic method for estimating task period is often referred to as PERT analysis. Basically, for the operation period, you take a weighted average negative, anticipated and positive forecast. This assessment is (pessimistic + 4x (expected) + optimistic) / 6

Step 5: Development Schedule

This phase is the mechanism by which the sequence of activities, the necessary resources and the length of each operation are used to optimize the overall project plan. In this phase, tools include the critical path, schedule compression, scenario analysis, resource levelling and methods for critical chain. - of these topics may include one or more posts, so we won't go through each of them in depth. If the schedule is created, a snapshot of the plan's original schedule should be provided.

Step 6: Schedule monitoring and control

The last move is to track and monitor the schedule. This move is taken during the life of the project and ensures that the outcomes of the work conform to the schedule plan. Schedule monitoring includes the use of progress reporting, schedule change management systems such as application for project change, management and a review of variances to decide whether further action is needed to reconcile the schedule with the schedule.

Difference between task effort and task duration

Task Effort (also known as work) is the actual time to complete the mission. Duration is the cumulative time the user has to complete the mission. For example, you may have a task that lasts only 2 hours but can be accomplished anytime over the next week. In this scenario, it would take 1 week, but it would take 2 hours to work. When users announce the completion of the task, the actual effort is compared with the task to verify whether it is above / below expectations.

Why are milestones used in addition to task activities in a schedule

Milestones offer a way to estimate the time it takes to complete your project with more precision, making it necessary for detailed project planning. They are also used in scheduling methods, such as the Critical Path Process, which can evaluate important time periods. By dividing the project into cycles or smaller timescales for control, you can measure the slowdown in your project better with milestones.

Like tasks, milestones can be related. This is because the process of one milestone cannot commence before the phase before it is completed. In that way you don't block team members by waiting or not allowing them to carry on with their duties.

The purpose of a table or GANTT-style diagram of the schedule

A Gantt chart is a tool for project management that helps to schedule and plan projects of all sizes, but it is especially suited for the simplification of complex projects (Lu et al., 2013). Project management schedules and activities are translated into a horizontal bar map, displaying the start and termination dates as well as dependences, schedules and time-frames. This is helpful if a large team and several stakeholders are present as the scope shifts.

As it is in a bar chart style, progress can be checked with a simple glance. You can see easily:

• a visual view of the whole project,
• Both projects' schedules and deadlines,
• Relations and dependencies between different activities,
• Phases of the project

Project management tools integrated into Gantt charts provide managers with insight in team workloads and current and future availability that allow a better scheduling. Gantt charts were invented by Henry Gantt, an American mechanical engineer, around 1910, almost a century.

References

Lu, Y., Yue, F., Wang, Q., & Wu, L. (2013). undefined. JOURNAL OF ELECTRONIC MEASUREMENT AND INSTRUMENT, 26(7), 577-585. https://doi.org/10.3724/sp.j.1187.2012.00577