Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Online Articles: Academic Writing for a Hopeless New Generation

Online Articles: Academic Writing for a Hopeless New Generation: Below is an example of an academic research writing I did for a foreign Master’s Degree student by the name of Kouf. Sounded like one of tho...

Academic Writing for a Hopeless New Generation

Below is an example of an academic research writing I did for a foreign Master’s Degree student by the name of Kouf. Sounded like one of those lazy Arab sons of oil-rich dads.
After dumping a set of files provided by his instructor, he leaves him there to do his assignment lock stock and barrel.  He even sends several reference materials he hasn’t read.  Imagine complaining later on who this author Dr. Rebecca de Coster is, which happens to be the author of one of the materials he provided me.
It’s a project management assignment for a fictitious company that plans to sell vehicle-mounted PDAs for airport use.  I did the standard capital budgeting analyses with the usual computation for NPV, IRR, etc, etc.  Then comes the project control section where I have to do an AON/AOA chart that is hardly used in any real project management job. Talk about learning something that is useless in the real world.  And I thought master’s degree courses tackle real world case studies. 
The bottom line is that this hopeless student who wanted to earn his Masters wanted the title but not the hard work that goes with it.
Is this the new generation of  post graduate students the world can expect to emerge as the new managers and executives? 
With the proliferation of academic research writers online, making it a thriving industry on its own, students only need to plunk in anywhere from $4 to $20 per page of around 300 words and they get their assignments - term papers, dissertations, thesis, and other courseworks.  How I wish there was something like this during my time. Maybe there was, in the streets of Recto but what I know is that they were just typists who formalize manuscripts of students.
Then again, if there was, I would never have been a writer.  But I certainly envy these lazy sons of bitches who can just pay off other people to do their assignments for a few dollars and get their degrees.
Of course, writers like me earn from the laziness of these people.  But then, I’m on my way out, retired and just doing things easy.  We have a new generation of Master’s degree holders who can’t even write. Looks like the age of brain dead future executives are about to unfold. 

Airport PDA Project Business Plan


Introduction
Hand held and vehicle-mounted Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) are currently used by several service firms in the fields of paramedic and roadside assistance; inventory management warehouse vehicles; courier and shipping deliveries, and logistics and industrial monitoring and control. Employees in the field or shop floor use PDA units to retrieve data, record transactions and update central systems over wireless networks for real time processing.
The company is seriously considering expanding it lines of business to offer handheld and vehicle mounted PDA technology in a commercial airport environment.  A PDA can be configured to run applications to serve as a wireless computer terminal for online real time transaction processing when undertaking ground support activities for processing passengers, cargo and aircraft at the airport terminal. 
Functionalities of wireless Airport PDA
The PDA will run a tweaked Microsoft Windows 8 OS that will have tight integration with the airport specific application and will have a rugged water and shock-resistant body casing of outdoor use, with attachments that can mount it in any part of a service vehicle or taken out for field assignment.  The application suite that can be configured for specific airport user requirement will cover the following:
Pre-flight activities
  • Cargo and baggage handling:  This feature often comes with a scanner that accepted IATA bar coding standards or Radio Frequency tags so they can just read bag tags and to ensure that baggage and cargo get correctly loaded as manifested into the right flight and destination (Stecher)
  • Mobile check-in service for passengers:  With a PDA on hand, terminal check-in staff effectively brings the counter to passengers forming a queue at the check-in counters (Trivedi). Like hamburger fast foods taking orders while you’re queuing, airport staff can check you in doing the same thing but with a PDA. Some airlines consider it a better alternative that Kiosk-based self-check-in counters offered in several European airports.
  • Conveyance for disabled and elderly passengers using electric vehicles to transport them to their gate assignments.
  • Refueling vehicles  to record actual fuel uploads
  • Aircraft turnaround line maintenance
Post-flight activities:
  • Cargo and baggage off-loading for delivery to appropriate terminals
Telecommunications Support Infrastructure
The wireless network infrastructure will harness WiFi 802.11 technology that operates on the spread spectrum range of 2.4 GHz, well outside of airline UHF frequency ranges.  It will use the 802.11n for higher throughput and longer range operation of up to a quarter of a kilometer or doubled with special repeater antennas in select tarmac locations.
Business Requirements
The project as initially estimated will require an investment of £5 Million in manufacturing assembly costs and systems development over an 18-20 month period. 
a)      A client-server middleware that can send and interrogate data from in house systems
b)      UK-CAA clearance to operate in the frequency range that will not interfere with airline operations
c)      Project management teams that will develop and support the PDA
d)     Marketing support for promotions and advertising for product pre-launch 6 months into the project which will fall into Year 1 of operations.
e)      24x7 help desk to support airport operators
f)       Organizational Project implementation support of customer users
Pricing Approach
The break-even point to recover product development costs will be computed and a suitable margin will be determined.  Unit prices will be uniform regardless of volume sold to each client. Initial customers may have to carry the brunt of recovery costs while succeeding customers after achieving the break-even point can benefit from lower or discounted pricing depending on the volume of PDA terminals ordered.
Several vehicle mountable PDA computers are currently available from Rhino, Datalogic, Motorola and Intermec costing upwards of £1,600 with the more expensive one at around £4,500 per gadget.  The initial pricing per Airport PDA of £1,100 is at the low end of the market value spectrum, especially for highly specialized applications and all airline and airport applications are generally in the upscale pricing bracket. The price will remain for the first few years of operation and can be marked down to £800 after the break-even point or payback period is reached. Pricing will be cost based plus mark-up. 
A standard laptop or tablet can be sourced at less than £200 per unit but what sets the Airport PDA is its robust casing construction that can survive the elements for outdoor use as well as the default application systems that will provide the value add to the product. This is not a consumer product and the specialized application is meant to increase efficiency and seamless services for airport terminals and airlines which can have significant savings out of the PDA application.
The cost of 1,100 per unit will recover the licensing and royalty costs for 3rde party technology patents to be used in the Airport PDA hardware and software including in0house software development costs for the specialisd application.  Offshore manufacturing will be considered to achieve better cost efficiencies. Licensing will be done on a per user per site basis.
A separate pricing component will involve hardware and software maintenance services which will be priced at a minimum of 15% of total hardware acquisition and license cost per client per year after the expiration of the first year warranty.  It will contain the following components
·         24x7 help desk support,
·         3-6 hours response time for  technical staff deployment and 1-hour remote diagnostics and repair support,
·         Basic parts inventory and identified sourcing to ensure fast and reliable hardware repairs
·         In-house systems programming work to support PDA client-server application
·         Instant PDA field replacement during in-shop on or-site repairs.
Part A: Project Feasibility and Management
The PDA technology is readily available to be enhanced for airport application and together with network connectivity, the projects proposed here is merely an application that will allow airport and airline stakeholders to harness the technology for seamless, efficient and cost-effective operations for managing ground activities in support of chartered and scheduled flights. domestically and internationally.
Stakeholder Identification using FFA (Forced Field Analysis)
Determining the stakeholders of the project can be first validated using the Forced Filled Analysis.  This allows the project management to identify people and groups that have a stake in the success of the project, whether in confirming their initial support for it or in convincing those with lesser enthusiasm or harbor concerns about it.

Table 1 FFA Analysis of stakeholder viewpoints

 Cash Flow Forecast and Analysis
The Revenue Model
The company will invest £5 Million in Year 0 from internal funds to roll out the product over a one-year project implementation timeframe.  Revenue streams are expected to be generated during the first 5 years based on initials sales of a modest 316 units based on the following assumptions:
  • The pricing approach as discussed above will apply, starting at 1,100 per unit and getting lower after the break-even on payback period has been achieved. 
  •  The project development will take all of Year 0 and 6-8 months into the second year to accommodate the standards systems beta testing market penetration.
  • The first two years will experience heightened market growth, registering 500% annual increases in sales volumes for two consecutive years starting on the 2nd year and settling to a 200% increase annually thereafter,.


Table 2: Revenue Model





There will be a fixed operating and overhead costs pegged at £7 Million annually to take dare of manufacturing costs and salaries of executives and employees involved in the. For variable costs, the following assumptions are made.
  • Maintenance costs will be a function of customer volumes and is initially pegged at 30% of the estimated maintenance charges paid out by customers from the purchase of the PDA, and will grow proportionately with the annual sales volume.
  • Marketing costs will increase proportionately with increase in clients (sales calls, trade exhibits, promotional giveaways, user training costs, etc.) and this is initially pegged at 3% of the gross revenues and will grow at an estimated 20% annually representing planned client growth which is independent of PDA units sold.
  • Taxes are expected to grow but cost component are excluded in the pre-tax variable costs.
  •  Licensing costs and royalties in the use of patented technologies in the PDA products will also increase the number of units sold and is estimated to cost 2% of unit prices.

The Operating Expense and Capital Model
With these assumptions, the following Operating and Capital Expenditure model is made, accounting for the investment on year one with a project development, testing and marketing lasting 18 -20 months.

Table 3:  Operating expense model





Getting the difference between the revenue streams and operating and capital expenses yields the net cash flow forecast over the five year period as follows
Table 4:  Net cash flow forecast




Applying the standard financial measures of Payback, Modified Payback, IRR, and Net Present values, and Profitability Index (Abraham), we get the following
Table 5:  Payback Period


Based on the cash flow forecast, payback computations show that given the assumptions, the company can realize its money back only after 4 years, more precisely, 0.12 months into the 5th year or roughly in the second month of that year. This may prove problematic in seeking the approval from the board which usually would like to see some promise of a return at an earlier date, preferably in the 2nd year.
Moving the Payback Period Earlier
A second scenario can be simulated where the payback period is advanced to the 2nd year of project implementation. This means a net cash flow that will allow full investment recovery on the 2nd year which is quite ambitious for the project.  This can happen only with the following assumptions based on the first scenario:
·         The first year volume of sales is effectively increased nine-fold from 316 to 2,844 PDA units.  This means that the project development timeframe is shortened to less than a year during which time, marketing would be in full swing.
·         The 2nd year is critical and the earlier assumption of a five-fold growth is maintained while a slower growth can be expected for the 3rd year onwards. 
For expenses, the following assumption is made:
·         Marketing cost will be increased to 540T for Year 1 and grow 20% on the 2nd year and maintained at the level thereafter.
After this time, the unit price can already come down to 800 on the 3rd year and 600 on the 5th year. The simulation yielded the following:

Table 6: Scenario 2 moving the payback period the 2md year


A second year payback period pushed all financial measures to an astounding level that is hard to believe – about 94% IRR and a staggering NPV of more than 5 times the initial investment.  On the other hand, the first scenario provides a more modest but realistically achievable target with IRR at 24% and a Net Present Value of 9.2 million which is almost twice the value of the investment.  The financial indicators already present a lucrative promise for the project despite having a nearly 5-year break even period.
While the first scenario’s payback period may prove unattractive, a 2nd year payback simply looks too good to be true and betrays a very optimistic projection that can later disappoint as reality sets in.  In the first place, hurrying the project development team to get the Airport PDA out the production line sooner than planned could result in system bugs that, while allowing for patches, could prove embarrassing for the company.  In addition, it will be a real challenge for marketing to penetrate the target airport and airline markets with its new product lines given the time constraints getting significant sales turnover right on Year 1.
Benefits of inter-project learning for a global consumer electronics firm
            A company that has ambitious plans to manufacture and market consumer electronics as well special-function gadgetry such as what is envisioned in this project can benefit from a synergistic and symbiotic strategic alliances and business partnerships with companies overseas that have specialized focused skills and the products identified as critical to the totality of  i9t planned products (Grant).  The point is that there is no business sense reinventing the wheel, as it were, to allow a company to go into vertical integration when it is so much more efficient to focus on your own knowledge and skill and let other to what do best for you. 
It’s all about collaborative enterprise engagement – one that creates more value to the customer because it achieves better efficiencies of focused contribution by each partner in the alliance.  It is said that when Pavarotti partnered with the Spice Girls to make an album, it is not because Pavarotti is crossing over to pop, or that the Spice Girls are interested in cross into operatic singing.  It was all about creating a collaborated engagements where both partners reap a more rewarding performance and market following.
Companies in South Korea, Taiwan and China, for instance, manufactures LCD screens and built-up circuit boards for almost any kind of processing function needed to make a PC, smartphone or any appliance.  A company needs only to choose which ones are relevant and have them assembled and branded by a 3rd party lost cost producer, just as what Apple is doing for its iPad and iPhones which are 100% built in China and elsewhere but conforming to rigid Cupertino-engineering and design specifications.
            It is strongly recommend seeking out these companies, mostly based in Southeast and Northeast Asia for the company to achieve strategic cost efficiencies in business alliances with suppliers. Just like Pavarotti or the Spice Girls, businesses today don’t want to learn how to make LCD displays, or do laser soldering, but if these technologies are needed for their products, they can always harness these highly focused skills using capital –intensive processes from partners faster, more cost effectively and profitably.
Hence, there’s now need to craft the PC from scratch.  The company can just re-house a hand-held computer with more robust casing for outdoor and have it rebranded.  There are many in China that can do this. Even the programming effort can be outsourced to 3rdparty partners that specialize in airport applications. The only real effort the company needs to do is marketing and positioning the product well in the global markets. 

Airport PDA Project Business Plan

Part B: Project Planning & Control
The project management aspect starts with defining the resource allocation, timelines and budgets for several developmental aspects of the Airport PDA project.  It has the following project activity parameters.



AOA/AON, Gantt charts and Critical Path Assessment (Q5/Q6)
These duration estimates are expressed as: a (optimistic), m (mostly likely) and b (pessimistic) parameters in each project activity or milestone.  Once their values have been estimated based on experience and educated guess, the expected time of completion can be computed using PERT formula (a + 4m + b) / 6 which yields the values reflected on the 6th column of Table 7.  Computing for the early start/finish and late start/finish as well as the slack times yield the columns thereafter (7th to 11th). Based on the early start/finish and late start/finish, the critical activities with zero float or slack times emerged to show the critical path.  The arrow node charts on Table 8 and Table 9 below illustrate this.

Table 7: Project activities and duration

Table 8: Project activities in AOA

Table 9: Project activity on AON Chart


A slack time or a float of zero defines a critical activity  (Meredith) which must be completed as scheduled or the next task cannot start and project delays become a certainly unless the succeeding task can be finished ahead of schedule.  Creating the Gantt chart as illustrated in Table 10 clearly indicates which tasks have slack times and which does not.  The critical path become obvious and in cases like these, determining the critical path is fairly obvious and there’s no need to use the CPM,
Based on the expected duration time computed form the Table 7, the Project Gantt chart is constructed below with initial critical path presented.  The project is expected to be completed in 4.5 months based on expected time of completion.  Of course, very few projects, if at all, ever get done on schedule or as planned mostly due to several factors like, unexpected supervening events beyond the control of the project manager, accidental errors along the way, change in corporate priorities, changes in the project activities due to changes in suppliers, project team member turnovers, or inability to get the need resources in time.

Table 10: Project Gantt Chart


Scheduling Optimization Option
A great deal of time and effort often goes in planning a project in an the hope of arriving at the optimum schedule of activities mapped out to match time-sensitive resource allocation and to bring the project to its conclusion at the least cost and at the earliest possible time (Meredith).  For sure, there are appropriate ways to schedule activities such as trial and error, Heuristic prioritization and optimized modeling using linear programming.  For this project, a simple Heuristic prioritization using minimum slack activities as having the highest priority can be used to optimum effect.  The minimum slack rule is often the most preferred scheduling method.  This is constrained and something compromised by the availability of resources when needed and any lack thereof can restrict how far the project manager can manipulate the schedule without have any impact to the overall project deliverables and completion date.
From Table 11, the manpower resources are fairly spread homogenously throughout the project duration. Without any peaks or troughs, no resource smoothing is necessary as this would be just a waste of time in a project like these. 



Table 11: Labour resource spread over the project duration


In getting the critical path variability, Table 11 shows the variance total among critical activities as 2 days and the standard deviation is its square root or 1.41 weeks. If management can only tolerate a 2% probability of not meeting the deadline, then multiplying 1.41 weeks x 2.054 (z-score found in a probability distribution table) yields 2.02 or 2 weeks. In short, management can only accept a 2-week delay form a planned 20=week project timeline.
Determining the probability that the project task will meet deadlines must be approached with a grain of salt as these are mostly the best guess estimates meant to boost confidence of the project sponsors and approving bodies.  It’s a fact of life that the most well-planned projects rarely even fall within the target deadlines.  But having the information gives projecti managers a better handles on the project.
  
Reducing the Project Duration By Two Weeks (Q8)
A sudden urgency may prompt the project manager to reduce the project timeline by two weeks.  A simple tabulation of the crash and normal duration and their corresponding associated costs per activity are shown on Table 13.

Table 13: Cost Slope of activities


Critical activities  B, E, F, and L can be crashed.  The rule of thumb is to reduce the duration of a critical task with the least cost slope,  Reducing B by two weeks will move the project two weeks forward but will cost £1,400. Another option is to crash E and F one week each which will cost £1,100 for an overall two-week reduction. The latters makes for a cheaper option.
Project Performance as of the half point(Q9)
On the 10th week or at the project’s half time mark, the summary of actual project expenses compared with budget allocation for each project activity is tabulated and it is plain the that the project is slightly behind schedule.  It should already hit 51.7% complete but is running at 48% which is not entirely out of hand.  The project enjoys a negative cost variance of 0.4% which means that out of a planned budget of £77,000 so far, it went overboard by a measly £300.

Table 14: Actual and budget cost Summary for each activity and actual 


On the other hand, a negative completion variance of 14.5% as of the 10th week indicates that its completion level is off by that amount. At the time the report was made, the project should be 51.7% complete, but is hitting only 48.3%.  And when it should be 88.6% complete for the 10th week, it is only hitting 75.7%.  Despite overshooting the budget by just a small amount, it has failed to complete the project in the time allotted and unless subsequent schedules are completed earlier, is certain to result in failure to meet the project’s overall deadline.
Optimizing Resource Mix (Q10)
The project manager needs to minimize the cost of Rouserces U and V used in a certain project task.  The details are provided in tableseeks to minimize the total cost of a certain activity related to this

Table 15: Constraints for resources U and V
Resource
Cost
(y)
y+2x
y-x
U (y)
£400
At least 2.5 resource-hours
Not to exceed  7.45 resource -hours
Not to exceed 1.75 resource-hours
V (x)
£900





Given the X and Y conditions in the table, a Cartesian graph is made and the Y – X = 1.75 and Y + 2X – 7.45 equations are plotted.  Given the minimum and maximum values, the result is a set of values falling within a triangular area as illustrated in the graph.  Upper limit for Resource U is 3.5 RH and lower limit is 2.5 RH.  Upper limit for Resource V is 2.5 RH and lower limit is around 0.75 RH. These values and their corresponding optimal costs are tabulated below.

Table 16: Optimal resource costs
Resource
Cost
Upper Limit
Cost
Lower Limit
Cost
U (y)
£400
2.5
£1,000
0.75
£300
V (x)
£900
3.5
£3,150
2.5
£2,250

Conclusion
While the use of PERT/CPM provides project managers a set of tools, that enable them to check on the viability of a project’s timeline, they are rarely used in real world projects as the time and effort to gather all the data needed in the computations are better spent on getting the project on the road (Coster).  Indeed, observations have revealed that whether you use them or go for a trial and error approach, it is rare that a complex project can meet the target deadlines and within budget.   But having said that, the tools are now better harnessed with project management software that use them as part of its algorithms and can benefit management in better adjusting schedules within available resources in part rather than in totality.
Project managers in charge of the company’s Airport PDA project has 12-18 months to implement their new product offering and get the most cost-effective market to win local airports for starters.  This can be greatly reduced by identifying prospective partners in the supply chain to ensure the company does not re-invent wheel and get the best deal in any business partnership.  Three areas and operationally critical, getting the vehicle-mounted PC hardware, the program to interface with airline and airport systems, and the telecommunications infrastructure in place at the airport.  Having the business alliance in place at this time is the first step and the best way to get the project off the ground and achieve the shortest implementation time.