Project Management Project control Time and resources control Quality control

Time and resources control It’s more important to handle the unexpected rather than predict the unpredictable Clip Apollo13 701 – prj state

Time and resources control When the project becomes operational (realization phase), you need to understand whether activities and events actually proceed as scheduled It is advisable to set up some check point (if you don’t already have milestones) to verify any possible variance of times, resources (and costs) and in case, to proceed with the plan’s partial review The completion control is as important as the planning and it requires a great amount of concentration by the Project Leader

Time and resources control We go from the “planning” to the realization and control phase – The Deming Cycle Plan Start PLAN Completion Check Variance Evaluation ACT DO Corrective actions Forecast to end CHECK Plan changes Approval

Time and resources control Completion Measures According to the plan’s update frequency and to milestones, for each activity you will have information regarding: The actual start date The actual end date The percentage of completion As for complex projects where you decide to monitor some economics through the planning, you can also collect : Procurement and external services costs Paid hours Material consumption

Time and resources control Completion Measures In case of an activity’s delay - that is when, at the date of control, its completion is inferior to what was scheduled - you need to see whether the delay can be made up or not. You can find three situations: The resource responsible for the activity which is behind schedule can set up temporary measures to make up (overtime, temporary increase of resources, outsourcing) The delay cannot be made up but the activity has free float. Therefore it does not impact on the following activity start dates neither on the expected end date The delay cannot be made up and the activity has no float, or the float is not sufficient to contain the delay. In this case you will have to consider the impact on the following activity start dates and on the project’s end date.

Time and resources control Completion Measures In case of some critical activity’s delay, this will directly cause the delay of the following start dates and on the project’s end date You then need to activate not only recovery actions on the activity which is behind schedule, but also preventive actions on the following activities so as to limit the effect of the delay Therefore it is important, within the project’s control activity, to jointly consider : The percentage of completion vs scheduled Any existing float Activity sequence Resources used People in charge

Time and resources control Completion Measures The quality of the decision you take depends on the effectiveness of planning tools you use The Gantt Diagram is very useful for completion control The completed work is shown by a “completion bar” overlapping the “scheduled bar” With the help of the Gantt Diagram is also possible to simulate and evaluate different scenarios and solutions

Time and resources control Completion measures – ex 1 At the 12th of December: Activity A, 100% completed, has been completed within schedule Activity C, 100% completed, has been completed within schedule Activity D, 25% completed, is behind schedule of 1 day. Yet, the activity has a free float and is not critical, therefore the day of delay will not produce any consequence timewise.

Time and resources control Completion measures – ex 2 At the 12th of December: Activity A, 15% completed, is highly behind schedule (6 days). With the Gantt analysis, you can see that the activity is not critical. Activity E, immediately following, has a free float of 5 days. The total delay on Activity A is more than activity E float, therefore, in the absence of corrective measures, it will impact on the start and end dates of the latter, and also on the project’s end date (it will be 1 day late).

Time and resources control The project’s rescheduling Time and resources control allows to identify any variance with the original plan You then proceed considering time and resources needed for the activity’s review, verifying whether the original targets can be maintained or not With the planning you can see the variation’s impacts on the baseline project and make simulations in order to find the most satisfying solution to achieve the goals Once the optimal alternative has been chosen, the correction and reviewing are made closing then the control cycle

Project Management Project control Time and resources control Quality control

QFD – Quality Function Deployment The House of Quality

QFD – Quality Function Deployment How to get a successful product/project Actions Involvement of the customer in the definition of value Correct positioning of the product Writing down the translation of expressed needs or marketing ideas through specific techniques Involvement of the customer also during the development process Definition of precise responsibilities on the product during its whole life cycle Techniques Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

QFD – Quality Function Deployment A project of product development must respect the time to market; have functionalities demanded by the market; but in order to be successful it has to account QUALITY Quality is the degree to which a product or a service fulfills customer requirements We can express customer requirements through functions he thinks the product/service will fulfill: Fa functions expected by the customer Fr functions realized by the manufacturer Fp functions perceived by the customer

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Customer expectations Customer Perception Realized Requirements Missing or non-satisfying functions Fr / Fa < 1 Wasted quality Fr / Fa > 1 Acknowledged quality Fp / Fa > 1 Customer satisfaction Fp / Fa = 1 Non-perceived Quality Fr / Fa = 1 Fp / Fa < 1 Quality that increases the perception of value Product’s functions Fa functions expected by the customer Fr functions realized by the manufacturer Fp functions perceived by the customer

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Quality “Exciters” (Delighters) : The adding of these features causes a quick and non-linear increase of customer satisfaction. Adding these characteristics during the design phase can guarantee great sale results Kano Diagramm Customer satisfaction + 3 Excellent performance + 2 1 LINEAR (One to one): The improvement of these characteristics only creates a linear increase of customer satisfaction (ratio 1:1). You don’t have any amazing improvements in customer satisfaction - THRESHOLD/ BASIC (Must haves): The absence or the lack of these product’s features causes a quick and drastic fall of customer satisfaction

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Kano Questionnaire While you build up the questionnaire you ask two questions for each request of the customer. The first question is relevant to a situation when the request is satisfied : “If [the product] met [the request X], how would you feel?” This is a ‘functional question’. Ex : The second question will refer to the case when it does not satisfy the request. This is the ‘dysfunctional question’, and can be as follows: “If [the product] did not meet [the request X], how would you feel?”. Ex: 1. I like it 1a. If the laptop carried on working after having spilled Coke over the keyboard, how would you feel? (functional) 2. It must be so 3. Indifferent 4. I can live with it 5. I don’t like it 1. I like it 1.b. If the laptop stopped working after having spilled Coke over the keyboard, how would you feel? (dysfunctional) 2. It must be so 3. Indifferent 4. I can live with it 5. I don’t like it

QFD – Quality Function Deployment It is a method that concentrates on aspects that pursue customer satisfaction (Fr / Fa  1 and Fp / Fa  1) in order to define the quality that will have to be assured, starting from he first phase of the engineering process The QFD forces you to link the product’s characteristics to the customer requirements (VoC: voice of the Customer) in a systematic way, and calls for different profiles within the company to interact among themselves

QFD – Quality Function Deployment The voice of the Customer The voice of the customer Statements which reflect the customer’s perception of: A product/service feature an experience with a product/service an experience with a process or a person The customer problems Worries, values or expectations relevant to a product/service. It describes the main problems that a customer might have. It describes the experiences relevant to the product/service attributes expected or wanted by the customer Critical features for the customer Specific, precise and measurable expectations that the customer holds about a product/service

QFD – Quality Function Deployment How to build the House of Quality – Voice of the customer

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Detection of Customer’s needs (aim) [Rif. ] Who is the customer (final user, dealer, internal customer, ..) ? What are his expressed or hidden needs? Analysis of the customer language and possible translation into an internal and agreed language, taking into consideration the different meaning that different subjects could give to terms Rationalization of customer needs into similar categories Deployment of primary needs up to elementary needs according to a branched structure

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Detection of engineering characteristics [Rif. ] Starting from customer elementary needs, detect the correspondent design characteristics The engineering characteristics (EC) must be measurable and representable with precision. The language is the one used by the engineers (Voice of the Engineer - VoE ) You should detect at least one EC for each elementary need of the customer – verify the squaring The EC should directly influence the quality perceived by the customers.

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Correlation (optional)  high (5)  medium (3)  low (2) Importance for the customer Superficial resistance Video camera controls Stable dimensions Material low costs Color chemical stability Visual controls Drop Test What the customer wants Assembly easiness  3 How Color uniformity 4     Crash resistance 5 duration   2 Low scraps  4 Relationship Relevance Low cost    2 Light betw piece and frame     5 64 20 31 24 10 15 37

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Define the relationship between the expected quality and the engineering characteristics – Relationship Matrix [Rif. ] The work team must establish whether there is any relationship between EC and Elementary Needs and the intensity of these relationships The satisfaction degree as for the j-th need is (EC1, EC2, ..., Eci, ..., ECm) Define the degree of importance of elementary needs, by defining a hierarchy based on the customer preference system You might have to find some compromise solution to be able to satisfy, at least partially, conflicting elementary needs. It is essential that the voice of the customer prevails over the voice of the engineer. HoQ

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Benchmarking of the perceived quality [Rif. ] and of the planned quality [Rif. ] Competitors analysis (perceived quality) can be made through a representative sample of customers For each elementary need you analyze the customer satisfaction degree as for our product currently in use (within the same segment of the market of the one we are designing) and as for the use of competing products You can use the same scale used for elementary needs (ex. from 1 to 5, from 1 to 10, ..) Our own product could be evaluated based on claims and on the number of interventions under warranty As for the planned quality, you need to compare each EC with a reference value of competitors The perceived and delivered quality analysis compared to the reference competitors allows to re-adjust target figures

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Correlation Matrix [Rif. ] It’s a triangular grid (the roof of the HoQ) created to highlight the relationships among EC and their “intensity” It is to identify which EC are in conflict among themselves (i.e. when a project action pursues a certain EC value but penalizes another target) and which meet It is to verify / plan / optimize the project’s actions to undertake and any compromise needed

QFD – Quality Function Deployment Engineering characteristics hierarchy [Rif. ] Combining the elementary needs hierarchy (pi) with the content of the Relationship Matrix, we want to obtain an Engineering characteristics hierarchy The scale that defines the weight of the relationship (Ri,j) is put into a cardinal scale 1-3-9 The absolute technical importance level IT of each engineering characteristic is given by : You can find the relative importance IT* dividing ITj for the summation of all values IT. This value shows the importance that the customer gives to each EC

QFD – Quality Function Deployment The use of the QFD must leave aside, at least at the beginning, economical considerations on the product (concepts of cost and value ) You need to look for opportunities where there is a high interest from the customer and low results from competitors Negative correlations between EC should be eliminated or, at least, reduced The success highly depends on the capability of involving a team making the members work together

QFD – Quality Function Deployment QFD benefits Quality improvement Reduction of engineering and production costs Higher product reliability Reduction of decision and planning time Reduction of claims under warranty Better marketing opportunities Work force more customer-oriented

QFD – Quality Function Deployment The QFD extension PRODUCT COMPONENTS PROCESSES SPECIFICATIONS Feedback