Project Planning and Control Custom Essay Help on Computer Science Pathway
Background
Last year the Star Logistics trucking company hired your IT services company Best IT to upgrade their Logistics system and add a Truck Location system. Star Logistics do not run a courier service but do have medium size trucks for package and pallet pickup or delivery, and larger trucks for a container movement service as well. This company is centred on a warehouse, and all trucks leave or return from/to this base. Last year all the trucks were fitted with a GPS linked to a built-in tablet linked via cell-phone VPN to the two main systems on a server at the Warehouse. Currently, for the Logistics system, a pickup or delivery manifest (load document) is printed at the warehouse for each truck’s trip, and uploaded into their tablet. The driver electronically records the status of their load from then on in real-time. The GPS system communicates the truck’s location in real-time to the office for display on a screen.
Now Star Logistics want to move to the next level of automation and Customer Support. They liked your work in the last project and so have again hired your company, Best IT, to do this new project. Their goals are:-
- to even further reduce driver error;
- speed up the delivery process to increase the productivity of each truck;
- provide complete visibility of the parcel/pallet status for the customer;
- facilitate the growth of customers by having superior IT systems;
- have the potential for multiple sites in the future.
You have been asked to prepare a Project Charter for the provision of the following system automation features:-
- Each truck is to be fitted with an RFID reader linked to their tablet so that loading of any parcels or pallets fitted with an RFID tag can be detected and processed automatically.
- A cordless bar-code reader with docking station is to be added to each truck so that the drivers can identify any parcels without an RFID tag, with ease.
- A small label printer is to be attached to the tablet in each truck so that off-site pickups can be labelled appropriately.
- A web site needs to be developed for customers to use to register their delivery jobs, and enable them to monitor the delivery status of their own parcels.
- Any additional network hardware and software that may be required to fully integrate the above features with their current systems.
Office and driver procedures will need to be modified for these enhancements, and all the staff involved fully trained. Standard IT Project tasks and deliverables must also be identified.
Costs
Not many costs are known at present. Note that all costs need to be approved in principle by your sponsor before you can include them in your budget.
As future IT professionals you should be able to identify the full hardware and software requirements for such a project and should be able to obtain realistic costs for all new hardware and software. You may also think of using suitable cloud services to provision any hardware and software that may be needed.
Although there should be an analysis phase within your project to identify the finer details, you will need to do some initial analysis to identify the scope for the overall project. In particular, you will need to identify the roles of any personnel required. The costs of these personnel must be included in your Budget and the Part-B Gantt.
There will be a questions and answers session to gather detailed requirements for the project.
Information Gathering
Note that this document supplies just a minimal starting set of information. You are expected to gather any additional information needed to develop the required Proposal document (aka Charter), and planning and reporting documents, by asking relevant questions of potential stakeholders. This information gathering initially may be done through a question and answer session in the class with your lecturer and subsequent questions may be asked by email.
Instructions
You are required to plan and document the new business setup project outlined below. Note that there are at least three (3) deadlines that you must plan for. Also note the hand-in procedures for the hard-copy material. There should be just one submission per team, but make sure you each have soft copies for backup purposes and contingency.
The assignment you submit for marking must be a product of your own work (as a team) except for the use of resources supplied with the course, discussions conducted by the lecturer during class time, and other assistance shown as acceptable in the section Assistance to Other Students on page 5. Your initial planning must include a plan for sharing the workload for the complete assignment. The marking lecturer may ask any individual for a further oral explanation, and different marks could be assigned to any non-participating team members.
Note that a “Peer Marking” form has been provided on Moodle to be used when a team member does not contribute as required. You must give advance notice to your team members if you intend to use that form. Also note the attendance requirement detailed later.
