MECH 0015 Industrial Project Management

Question 1:

• Use a weighted score model to choose between three methods (A, B, C) of financing the acquisition of a major competitor. The relative weights for each criterion are shown in Table 1 as are the scores for each location on each criterion. A score of 1 represents unfavorable, 2 satisfactory, and 3 favorable. Note that the weights need not sum to 100 (Meredith and Mantel, 2010). [9 marks]

Table 1: Relative weights for Methods A, B and C.

• What would your recommendation be if the weight for the implementation risks went down to 10 and the weight of cultural differences went up to 25? (Meredith and Mantel, 2010). [8 marks]
• Suppose instead that Method A received a score of 3 for implementation risks. Would your recommendation change under these circumstances? (Meredith and Mantel, 2010). [8 marks]

Question 2:

• The net cash flows for a four-year financial project are RO 15,000, RO 20,000, RO 25,000, and RO 45,000 respectively for the next four years. The implementation cost for the project is RO 70,000 and the required rate of return is 15%. Calculate the net present value for the discounted cash flow. [7 marks]
• What do you think could be the net present value of the financial project in Question 2A if the inflation rate were to be 3% in the four-year period? [8 marks]
• Calculate the profitability indices for Questions 2A and 2B. [5 marks]
• If the project in Question 2C were contracted out to a financial consultant, explain the feasible contract arrangement that can be made which would benefit the awarding company. [5 marks]

Question 3: 

Fig. 1. Project network activities

(A) Given the above project network activities in Fig. 1, 

1. Represent the network in a table comprising the predecessors, successors and activity times. [2 marks]

2. What is the critical path? [4 marks]

3. How long will it take to complete the project? [2 marks]

4. How many days can the activity B be delayed without delaying the completion of the project? (Meredith and Mantel, 2010). [2 marks]  

(B) Given the estimated activity times in Table 2 below and the network shown in Fig. 1, what is the probability that the project will be completed in 21, 22 and 25 days? (Meredith and Mantel, 2010). [15 marks]

Table 2: Estimated activity times

Question 4: 

• When do project manager and project team members assess risks in project management? [8 marks]
• Which one is more important among the project performance, cost and time in project management? [8 marks]
• Do you believe that project scheduling is similar to project management plan? [9 marks]
• Total marks [100 Marks]

Guidelines 

Rules & Regulations 

• If any topic or diagram of the case study is found plagiarized from another student, marks will be deducted from both case studies.
• The case study requires research work for which books, Internet sources, computer magazines or any other sources can be consulted.

Plagiarism Policy (Plagiarism)

A. First offence of plagiarism

1. If a student is caught first time in an act of plagiarism during his/her course of study in any assignment other than project work, the student will be allowed to re-submit the assignment once, within a maximum period of one week. However, a penalty of deduction of 25% of the marks obtained for the resubmitted work will be imposed.
2. Period of re-submission: The student will have to re-submit the work one week from the date he or she is advised to re-submit.
3. If the re-submitted work is also detected to be plagiarized, then the work will be awarded a zero.
4. Re-submission of the work beyond the maximum period of one week will not be accepted and the work will be awarded a zero.
5. If the student fails the module and has a proven case of academic integrity violation in this module , the student is required to reregister the module
6. If plagiarism is detected in Project work (Project 1, Project Planning and Project Design and Implementation) the above clauses (a,b,c,d) do not apply and  the work will be summarily rejected. In these cases the student will be awarded a fail (F) grade and  is required to reregister the module

B. Second offence of plagiarism

1. If any student is caught second time in an act of plagiarism during his/her course of study (in a subsequent semester), the student will directly be awarded zero for the work in which plagiarism is detected. In such cases, the student will not be allowed to re-submit the work.
2. If the student fails the module and has a proven case of academic integrity violation in this module, the student is required to re-register the module

C. Third Offence of plagiarism

If any student is caught for the third time in an act of plagiarism during his/her course of study (in a subsequent semester), the student will be penalized with a fail in the module and shall be required to re-register the module.

D. Fourth Offence of plagiarism

If any student is caught for the fourth time in an act of plagiarism during his/her course of study (in a subsequent semester), he shall be suspended from the College for a period of one semester.

E. Fifth offence of plagiarism

If any student is caught for the fifth time in an act of plagiarism during his/her course of study (in a subsequent semester), he shall be expelled from the College

Malpractice (MP)

A. First offence of MP

If a student is caught in an act of malpractice for an assessment component irrespective of coursework or end semester, the student shall fail the module and shall be required to re-register the module.

B. Second Offence of MP

If a student is caught a second time in an act of malpractice for an assessment component irrespective of coursework or end semester (in a subsequent semester), the student shall be suspended for one semester from the College.

C. Third Offence of MP

If a student is caught a third time in an act of malpractice for an assessment component irrespective of coursework or end semester (in a subsequent semester), the student shall be expelled from the College.

Other cases

It denotes all other forms of academic misconduct including but not limited to ghostwriting, collusion, fabrication, falsification, unauthorized access to unseen examination papers and other academic and administrative documents/systems and aiding academic dishonesty/misconduct

If a student commits an act of academic integrity violation whether defined as above as “other cases” or of a different nature, those cases shall also be forwarded to a departmental level committee set for the purpose .The committee shall investigate the case by means of a viva and/or a disciplinary hearing and shall take appropriate decision.