Page 145 - DMGT206_PRODUCTION_AND_OPERATIONS_MANAGEMENT

Production and Operations Management

Notes taking the ‘top-down’ approach in launching mid-sized and multi-purpose vehicles in
India was to understand the market better before launching volume-driven small cars.
TKM’s Deputy Managing Director (Marketing & Sales), Mr Sandeep Singh, said that by the
time the new car is launched, the company will have 150 dealers across 100-odd cities. He
said the marketing and sales division of TKM was also being strengthened in the run-up
to the car launch.
Source: thehindubusinessline.com

7.3.2 Using Project Software

For large projects, assistance of computer software is essential. The software creates a project
schedule by superimposing project activities, with their precedence relationships and estimated
duration time, on a time line. It provides information on the specific tasks, and milestones to
know whether the project is on target, headed in the right direction, and on time. People doing
the work will find it much easier to see when they are supposed to start and finish their jobs if
you give them a bar chart compared to the arrow diagram.

Did u know? Scheduling software always allows you to print a bar chart, even though a
CPM network is used to find the critical path and to calculate floats.

Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 is a popular software used to plan projects, though
many experts are critical of it. The software schedules a task’s Start and Finish. It takes into
account many factors, including task dependencies, constraints, and interruptions, such as holidays
or vacation days.

How to Use

 To start a typical project click on File in the toolbar and then select New.
 A dialog box appears on the screen asking you whether to start a blank project or not.
Click on OK.

 A new dialog box appears asking you to fill in the project information.
 Upon clicking the OK button in the Project Information dialog box we have the Gantt chart
on the screen.
 Enter tasks in the order they will occur.
 Then estimate how long it will take to complete each task.
 In the Duration field, type the amount of time each task will take in months, weeks, days,
hours, or minutes, not counting non-working time. Microsoft Project uses durations to
calculate the amount of work to be done on the task. When you start a new project in
Microsoft Project, you can enter your project’s start or finish date, but not both.

 Double-click on the first row of the field Task Name.
 A dialog box appears asking for Task Information. Information about predecessors,
resources, etc., has to be keyed in.

 You link tasks by defining a dependency between their finish and start dates.

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