Project Firecracker Essay

1006 Words5 Pages
Project Firecracker 1) Why did the project fail? The project failed for three main reasons: * Traditional approach to project assignments. The engineering department has most part of the responsibilities associated with the project assignment, regarding the purchase of capital equipment and the selection of the most suitable methods of production. Jeff, the chief engineer, assigns the project to the appropriate section, and, thanks to the supervision of a project engineer, the project is completed. Also, when the project is finished, the engineering department has no responsibility for the time study, production, product design, or other departments. The only way to influence decisions is through persuasion or the chief engineer, who can directly contact the vice president of manufacturing and engineering to get some proxy. This approach is unsuitable to the market context of National, which in fact led to the loss of the order. * Poor communication. Each function has its own objectives and working times. Under these conditions, the communication between functions becomes difficult, especially if there is no project manager, able to coordinate all the activities. National Company has numerous examples of lack of communication. For example, at the beginning of the project, Jeff has to spend a lot of time to understand the drawings submitted by customers. All of this information must pass through Waldo, the manager of product design. Communication between Jeff and Waldo is sequential, not reciprocal. This leads to a great waste of time. The poor communication is also the reason of many delays regarding the delivery of test parts. In particular, the president told Jeff, without previous consult, that sale department has agreed with the customer to delivery 100 test pieces in one week, and in the meanwhile the sales department was not notified that the

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