Case Study:
Silicon Cliffs is a big private company that undertakes consultancy activities and services in the field of building construction. Silicon Cliffs has gained peoples' confidence due to its seriousness, reasonable cost charged, provision of new designs, while using state-of-the-art technologies and materials in the construction process.
Recently, Silicon Cliffs has obtained a contract for a very challenging project, a type, which it has not embarked upon before - "Construction of a 5-star hotel on the border of a lake". The site has been chosen because it provides a panoramic view of the beautiful and luxuriant scenery that would surround the proposed hotel.
In a meeting held with members of the project team, the project manager voiced out that "applied research needs to be performed due to the complexity of the project".
Members of the project team suggested: "there should be frequent brainstorming sessions to develop a project option that would be acceptable to all of us, due to high-risk areas that may be encountered in the course of the project".
The Director of Silicon Cliffs, on his part, insisted that for this specific project there might be many possible solutions to one particular problem and consequently solutions should be evaluated by performing a risk analysis. He also added that the project manager should devise checklists and use them for comparison purposes during trade-off studies.
In the project team of Silicon Cliffs, there are also some cabinet-makers. They can make chairs, tables, stairs and other furniture. Wooden stairs need to be built to link the different levels of the hotel. Depending on the costs, schedules or deadlines, the project manager may opt for one of these two alternatives: either have the cabinet-makers construct the stairs or have prefabricated stairs ordered from a supplier. That is, make-or-buy decisions must first be identified and then a solution selected.
Answer the following questions.
(a) What is applied research and why should it be conducted for this project?
(b) (i) What is the objective of having frequent brainstorming sessions?
(ii) Describe the four basic rules that brainstorming groups follow.
(c) (i) What do you understand by "high-risk areas"?
(ii) High-risk areas generally fit into four categories. Describe each of these categories.
(d) Consider the following statement made by the Director of Silicon Cliffs: "the project manager should devise checklists and use them for comparison purposes during trade-off studies". Explain what is a trade-off and define its relation to a risk-analysis.
(e) Assume that in the proposed hotel project, a set of wooden stairs is to be constructed. A make or buy decision will have to be taken.
(i) Explain the meaning of a make or buy decision.
(ii) Propose a make and a buy decision for the above case.
(iii) Illustrate by means of a flow diagram a make-or-buy sequence, supporting your answer with brief explanatory notes.
(f) Once the 5-star hotel has been completed, it should be "delivered". Delivery is considered to be an instant of time at the end of the implementation phase. What are the three conditions associated with delivery?