Reference no: EM132283603

Topic: Resource Utilization, Determining Costs & Budget

Thread: Respond to the following:

· List and describe items that should be included when estimating activity costs.

· List all of the resources used for your project.

· Describe what is meant by resource-limited scheduling. Why is it used? When is it used?

Revise this Discussion board post. Put it through a plagiarism app when complete

Discussion Board : Resource Utilization, Cost and Budget Determination

According to Atal, Bar and Gordon (2016), "In many situations, firms are constrained in the number of projects they can work on at once, and projects can last for a number of periods. Committing limited resources to one project may result in the need to forgo future, perhaps more profitable opportunities" (p. 30). In determining if a project is even feasible for a company to complete, much less desirable to pursue, the proposing team should estimate the activity costs.

This estimate should include all time and materials necessary, among other things outlined below. In some instances, resource-limited scheduling may be necessary.

While this may delay the project timeline, it could mean the difference between successfully completing a project and never even starting it to begin with. For Diebold-Nixdorf in the creation of the enhanced note acceptor self-healing software component for US Bank, resource-limited scheduling will likely not be necessary.

Activity Cost Estimation

According to Gido, Clements and Baker (2018), "The estimated cost of an activity is based on an estimate of the types and quantities of resources required to perform the activity" (p. 7-1). The estimate must include the following factors where appropriate: labor, materials, equipment, facilities, subcontractors and consultants, travel, and reserve funding.

According to Asmussen, Kristensen and Waehrens (2018), "Conflicting goals among decision makers could result in either constructive debate, which could reduce erroneous assumptions and increase cost estimation accuracy, or a competitive environment, in which a lack of trust and collaboration could exaggerate estimation errors" (p. 996). Because of this potential for exaggerated estimation errors, it is important to include an impartial party in the process to mitigate the issue.

Diebold Nixdorf Project Resource Requirements

Of the items listed in the previous section, Diebold must consider labor and equipment as the most expensive resources needed for this project. Facilities and travel costs are required for testing purposes both in-house and via the customer's self-managed in-house simulation network.

Very few materials are required for the completion of this project, as the final product is compact enough to fit on a single 12GB USB drive. Subcontractors and consultants are not required for this effort, and the project team will not consider in the activity cost estimation. Reserve funding will be provided by US Bank to Diebold Nixdorf in the event project changes are requested which would substantially change the level of effort required to fulfill the order.

, Diebold Nixdorf will require the following resources: two coders, two test engineers, travel funding for said personnel to move between the customer and in-house facilities, 300 square feet of lab space in Canton, OH development center for 6 months, two test machines, four engineering computers, and four 12GB USB Drives.

Resource-Limited Scheduling

Gido, Clements and Baker (2018) define resource-limited scheduling as "a method for developing the shortest schedule when the quantity of available resources is fixed" (p. 6-4). Essentially, companies use resource-limited scheduling when a finite budget or personnel level exists, and to go beyond that limit is not possible.

It is used because it allows companies to still accomplish project goals, albeit usually at a time cost, when they do not have the resources to complete it on the originally planned or the ideal schedule for the business. According to Nie and Gao (2016), "The [RLS] problem may be evolved into a discrete time-cost tradeoff problem which can be subdivided into the deadline problem and the budget problem" (np.). This statement points to the tradeoff nature of resource-limited scheduling compromises made by project teams.

This issue not only occurs with human-reliant projects such as construction or some other manual effort, but also in computer networking and related projects, such as those designed to increase the network speed of a mobile service provider or in the enhancement of simulation projects such as those used in the many space programs.

According to Liu, Wang, Yu, Qi and Sun (2016), "Optimized ant colony algorithm is often used to solve time-limited scheduling and resource-limited scheduling" (p.375). ACO is regularly used to optimize operations and ensure routing and effort are streamlined as much as possible, which creates slack and eliminates the need in some cases for rationing resources. "Resources" does not necessarily always refer to personnel but could instead refer to system capabilities or materials.

Conclusion and Biblical Integration

The tendency today is for businesses to seek out the leanest possible route and follow it, constantly doing more with less, to increase shareholder value. While no mortal could hope to perform miracles the same way as Jesus, Matthew 14:13-21 does come to mind. It tells the story of how Jesus fed five thousand men, women and children from just five loaves of bread and two fish. In Mark 9:23 (New International Version), Jesus also says "Everything is possible for one who believes."

More practically for this application, Ephesians 5:15-17 (New International Version) says "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." This passage is a reminder to use time wisely, which resource-limited scheduling requires. Cost estimations should be completed, just as instructed in Luke 14:28, and then the management team must decide which projects to pursue and in which order.

References

Asmussen, J. N., Kristensen, J., & Wæhrens, B. V. (2018). Cost estimation accuracy in supply chain design. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 48(10), 995-1019. doi:10.1108/IJPDLM-07-2018-0268

Atal, V., Bar, T., & Gordon, S. (2016). Project selection: Commitment and competition. Games and Economic Behavior, 96, 30-48. doi:10.1016/j.geb.2016.01.011

Gido, J., Clements, J., & Baker, R. (2018). Successful project management (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage. SKU: 2110771.

Liu, Y., Wang, K., Yu, Y., Qi, J., & Sun, Y. (2016). A dynamic assignment scheduling algorithm for big data stream processing in mobile internet services. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 20(3), 373-383. doi:10.1007/s00779-016-0914-z

Nie, S., & Gao, J. (2015). Discrete time-cost tradeoff model for optimizing multi-mode construction project resource allocation. Peerj Preprints,doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.1299v