Assignment Task:
Background
Claude Jones joined PT in 1999 as a new MBA from the University of Edinburgh. He worked as a mechanical engineer for U.K. Hydraulics for five years prior to returning to school for the MBA. "I just wanted to be part of the management team and where the action is." Claude moved quickly through the ranks. Today he is the vice president of design and operations. Sitting at his desk, Claude is pondering the conflicts and confusion that seem to be increasing in scheduling people to projects. He gets a real rush at the thought of designing power trains for large trucks; however, given their current project scheduling problems, a large increase in business would only compound their problems. Somehow these conflicts in scheduling have to be resolved before any serious thought can be given to expanding into the design of power transmissions for truck manufacturers.
Claude is thinking of the problems PT had in the last year. The MF project is the first to come to mind. The project was not terribly complex and did not require their best design engineers. Unfortunately, the scheduling software assigned one of the most creative and expensive engineers to the MF project. A similar situation, but reversed, happened on the Deer project. This project involved a big customer and new hydrostatic technology for small tractors. In this project, the scheduling software assigned engineers who were not familiar with small tractor transmissions. Somehow, thinks Claude, the right people need to be scheduled to the right projects. Upon reflection, this problem with scheduling has been increasing since PT went to multi-project scheduling. Maybe a project office is needed to keep on top of these problems.
A meeting with the information technology team and software vendors was positive but not very helpful because these people are not really into detailed scheduling page 303problems. The vendors provided all sorts of evidence suggesting the heuristics used-least slack, shortest duration, and identification number-are absolutely efficient in scheduling people and minimizing project delays. One project software vendor, Lauren, kept saying their software would allow PT to customize the scheduling of projects and people to almost any variation selected. Lauren repeated over and over, "If the standard heuristics do not meet your requirements, your own heuristics that do." Lauren even volunteered to assist in setting up the system. But she is not willing to spend time on the problem until PT can describe to her exactly what criteria will be used (and their sequence) to select and schedule people to projects.
Question: Daniel Gage, the founder of Power Train Ltd (PT), believes that the current use of sophisticated software in project resource scheduling is the root cause of the resource scheduling problem at PT.
Do you agree? Appraise the situation to support your position.