BUS353 Air Taxi System Project Management Case Study – ECA

Section A (65 marks)

Answer all questions in this section.

Question 1

The Objective of this ECA

To provide an opportunity for students to apply the knowledge learnt in the course and to develop/sharpen the necessary technical skills and knowledge in project management.

You are required to compose a report for Section A.

PROJECT: Implementing An Air Taxi System

Background

Singapore is a small country. There is limited land that can be catered to road usage. However, many economy activities need to be carried out by transportation. Hence, alternative modes of transportation have to be explored.

Air Taxi System (ATS) can be used to transport passengers for short to medium distances, by applying Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) technologies which include vertical takeoffs, autonomous capabilities and fully-electric systems. The vehicle is quiet, environmentally friendly, can takeoff in small areas and driverless by remotely controlled from a centre. It has potential to offer alternatives to land transportation, particularly in congested cities or hard-to-reach rural regions. Currently there are pilot air taxi services in several parts of the world. However, there is no unified ATS standard yet.

Cross Country Transport (CCT) is a transportation company that provides bus, taxi, and train services. CCT’s senior management is interested to pilot an air taxi service between Sentosa Cove and Marina Bay. However, as a transportation company, CCT does not have the knowledge and resources to develop the system.

Air Bot Creator (ABC) is a technology company which designs and manufactures drones for surveillance and logistic industries. ABC intends to extend its capabilities to develop an ATS.

Question 1a

Through an economic platform provided by the government to match Business to Business (B2B) partners, CCT came into contact with ABC. After intensive discussions, CCT decided to outsource the development of its pilot air taxi service to ABC. Both parties call it the Air Taxi System (ATS) Project.

Relate four (4) approaches of Principled Negotiation, each to a situation that CCT can adopt when negotiating with ABC on an item or issue about the ATS Project.

You must present your answer in the following format:

CCT shall apply the approach: ___________ (name the approach) in negotiating ___________ (identify an item or issue) with ABC. Details: ___________ (describe the situation, how CCT can apply the approach and the reason of doing so).

You should limit your essay for Question 1(a) to a maximum of 450 words and indicate the word count at the end of your answer.

(20 marks)

Question 1b

ABC’s CEO, Mr James Tan, gathered the following staff to form the ATS Project team:

1. Yourself, an ABC’s Product Manager. You are appointed as the ATS Project Manager. You are responsible for coordinating the project activities, providing administrative support and dealing with external organisations such as contractors to construct the taxi landing stations and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) to certify the system.
2. Ms. Hannah, an ABC’s Software Engineer. She is in charge of developing the Air Taxi in-vehicle application software and the control centre software.
3. Mr. Ravi, an ABC’s Mechanical Engineer. He is in charge of designing the taxi chassis, selecting the engine and working with a contract manufacturer to fabricate and assemble the taxi.

Before the project starts, James briefed you on the management’s expectations:

• The company’s finances are tight. An initial budget has to be worked out. It will be good to achieve a Cost Performance Index (CPI) of at least 1.0. Any subsequent increments have to be justified by the project team. He will approve the change if it is reasonable.
• CCT wants the project to be started on 1 Feb 2025 and completed by 11 July 2025, so that it will have sufficient time to prepare for the launch of the service at the Singapore Smart City Convention which will happen in the following month. There will be penalty to ABC if the project is delayed.
• Besides the basic functions of air taxi service, such as booking, transporting and payment, the project team shall incorporate as many additional features, e.g., in-vehicle infotainment, as possible into the ATS.

Based on the CEO’s directions, you are required to appraise the priorities of the project and construct a project priority matrix.

Note: Each criterion can be assigned to only one unique priority.

(9 marks)

Question 2

You have conducted a pre-project discussion and worked out the project activities as shown in Table 1.

*Note: You must use your surname instead of “PM” in the MS Project Resource Sheet and Column.

To prepare an initial costing for budget approval, you gather the following unit costings:

Question 2a

Construct a Gantt Chart (after Clear Leveling) with Information (i), Task Mode, Task Name, Duration, Start Date, Finish Date, Predecessors, and Resource Names columns shown in a single diagram. Hence, state the project completion date and explain any resource conflicts.

(5 marks)

Question 2b

You need to solve the conflicts within the project deadline. Due to the specialised skills of the team members in this intensive project, resource conflicts cannot be resolved by splitting the task, member multitasking, transferring the task to other members, nor adding more people. The members will not be working beyond eight (8) hours per day. At this moment, they do not want to work on weekends. Hence, you should try to resolve the conflicts within available slacks. Set up the approach below:

Right click on the task with conflict that has the smallest Task (i.e., Activity) ID. Select “Reschedule to Available Date”.

1. If an error message shows that the conflict cannot be resolved, click “Stop”. Skip item (ii) below.
2. If the conflict is resolved, check the Project Finish Date. If it exceeds the Deadline, press “Control Z” to undo this levelling.

Proceed to the next task below with conflict. Repeat the above operations one at a time until all tasks with conflicts that could be resolved are completed. There is no need to use any additional methods now to resolve the conflicts.

You must explain the outcome of your action in each of the steps above and state the eventual project completion date if it changes.

Note: There is no need to show diagrams for Question 2(b).

(4 marks)

Question 2c

You try to push the finish date further to resolve all the resource conflicts without adding demands on the resources. Do the following:

First, select all tasks, right click to choose Auto Schedule, then Resource Tab -> Clear Levelling. Choose Entire Project.

Then do Auto leveling by clicking Resource-> Leveling Option -> Tick the buttons “Automatic” and “Level Entire Project”. Uncheck all the boxes below. Then click Level All.

Assess the changes due to this resource leveling operation. Identify the finish date and comment on the impact.

Note: There is no need to show diagrams for Question 2(c).

(5 marks)

Question 2d

You are aware of the need to hand over the system by the deadline. You need to solve the problem by exercising your Project Manager authority.

First, do Clear Levelling. Then select the items you want to change, followed by Level All.

Explain the changes you make in MS Project so that the deadline can be met.

Note: You should show the settings in MS Project for Question 2(d).

(6 marks)

Question 3

The CEO approves the changes made in Question 2. Set the Status Date (Project -> Status Date) as 5 Feb 2025. Save this as a Baseline Plan (Project -> Set Baseline -> check Entire project), which will be used to evaluate the project performance at a later stage.

As the project progresses, the following incidents occurred:

1. While constructing the taxi landing stations, the lands at the designated sites were found to be too soft. More solid foundations were needed by adding structures and laying stronger compounds. The construction cost increased by additional $30,000. Fortunately, there was no change to the schedule.
2. CCT’s CEO made a surprise visit to the project team after the application software was tested. He disliked the user interface. He demanded ABC to make some changes, which needed additional five (5) days’ work in Activity 13. Hannah and Ravi were tired and refused to work overtime or on weekends to solve this issue. Eventually, CCT agreed to extend the ATS Project completion date and pay ABC accordingly. CCT would shorten their launch preparation which is not in the scope of the ATS Project.

Note: This special allowance of delaying the deadline is not applicable to the situations in Question 2.

Update all relevant activities and costs in the MS Project File to incorporate the changes due to incidents (i) and (ii).

The project went on till completion. Set Status Date to the working day after the last activity, then update the MS Project file. (Project->Update Project, Click Entire Project).

Question 3a

Set up in a single diagram the Tracking Gantt Chart view of MS Project with Information (i), Task Mode, Task Name, Duration, Start Date, Finish Date, and Predecessor columns shown. State the project completion date.

(5 marks)

Question 3b

Present a MS Project Cost Report or Table with the Cost Performance Index (CPI). State the values for Budgeted Cost At Completion (BAC) and Estimated Cost At Completion (EAC). Formulate the Cost Performance Index (CPI) and compute the final CPI manually.

(5 marks)

Question 3c

Discuss two (2) actions that could have been taken to prevent the two incidents during the project implementation period from happening or to reduce their impacts.

Note: Discuss one action for each incident.

(6 marks)

Section B (25 marks)

Answer all questions in this section.

Question 4

The ABC’s CEO has scheduled a meeting one week after the project completion for you, the Project Manager for the Air Taxi System (ATS) Project, to illustrate to the Senior Management the following items:

1. What were the objectives and priorities of the project, and were they met?
2. Were there changes in the schedule and what were the contributing events?
3. Was there a cost overrun and what were the contributors for the cost overruns, if any?
4. What are the recommendations for future projects?

Prepare a video recording of your presentation of at least 3 minutes but not exceeding 6 minutes. Refer to Canvas T/RESIT course site > Assignments > ECA_VIDEO for the step-by-step guide on how to submit the video.

(25 marks)

Section C (10 marks)

Answer all questions in this section.

Question 5

Prepare a set of PowerPoint presentation slides upon which the video presentation is based. Please note that the PowerPoint file must be converted to a PDF file before submission to Canvas.

(10 marks)

 

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