The Centrality of Project Management

In spite of the critical nature of project management, one global survey (PMI2006) revealed that only 47 percent of project professionals have some formal training in project management. Consistent with this, engineers and other technical professionals have traditionally received little or no project management instruction as part of their education. 

Each of the results of effective project management may be briefly described as follows  

Profitability. Projects are profit or loss generators in the private sector. Similarly, in the government, academic, and volunteer sectors, the manner in which projects are managed is a major determinant of staying within budgets. 

Reduced likelihood of disputes and liability exposure Refer to Chapter 11, Legal Framework, for discussion of ways in which individual engineers and their organizations can encounter legal problems and for suggested practices that reduce the likelihood of such problems. Note that all of this is closely connected to managing projects. 

Teaching and learning There is no make believe here and, therefore, everyone, especially younger personnel in business, government, academic, and volunteer sectors can be taught and can learn while working on projects. 

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The centralized analysis project is entering Phase II. Learning from the successes and pitfalls of the first two and one half years, the scope of this project has changed somewhat. The consensus of program managers and researchers is that Phase II will have two major tasks. 

The push model is essentially one of project management in which the programme is planned and controlled centrally and then rolled out in the... 

Transfer documents must be updated and maintained at a central location such as in the office of the program or project manager These records are of great importance in establishing the validity of any questionable data. 

O Toole and Mikolaitis (2002) see the contract as central to the correct procedure for project planning and implementation. Much is written about contracts in engineering, building and software industries, and event manager can take advantage of lessons learned from successes and failures in these other industries in their use of project management. Each contract specifies who will do what, when and how. It can contain many details, or be simple letter of agreement or a purchase order. 

The pilot study is likely to use all the same Quality Management tools that were used for the integration framework development (Chapter 5). However, the limited scope of the pilot study enforces some limitations and compromises—it will not be possible to make changes outside of the department covered by the pilot. Any existing interfaces with other departments must remain the same. This will impact the design phases of the work. For example, Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) may currently be prepared locally, in the overall project it might be proposed to develop these centrally. However, for the pilot study it will not be possible develop the central resource so the pilot would have to continue to rely on local resources and there will be no efficiency improvement. 

Successful management of a central HTS operation requires a discipline of process control that extends beyond the automation systems. The progression of HTS projects must be carefully guided and tracked through several milestones designed to ensure that a steady and predictable stream of robust assays are available for transfer to the automation platforms and that sufficient bulk reagents and consumable supplies will arrive in time to support the HTS campaigns. 

A panel of experts from academia and industry (Table 12.4-2) was assembled to provide the students with professional advice. The HKUST central facilities for Material Characterization and Preparation Facility (MCPF) and Advanced Engineering Material Facility (AEMF) and the laboratories of Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Advanced Technology Center play a pivotal role in the success of the project. Table 12.4-3 lists the equipment used by the students in this project. 

A small but diverse team of personnel is typically involved in the activities of the Project Identification and Definition Stage (refer to Figure 2.1). Representatives from groups such as process analytics, process control, project management, central engineering and production operations should populate the team in the first stage. The size and diversity of the team should grow from the identification step to the definition step as resources are allocated and plans developed. 

The behaviour of the individual actors in the chain is in turn affected by both internal and external structures and factors. For example employers, employees, purchasing departments for substance input and waste management for output as well as the various specialised divisions in companies using chemical products thus pursue entirely different interests and strategies. A central concern of the SubChem project was how the interaction of all actors inside and outside the supply chain can accelerate or hamper innovations. 

The Implementation phase is treated in the ensuing chapters from the perspective of each of the levels at which a manager operates organization, group and self. At each of these levels there is a central dilemma that managers and project leaders continually need to resolve ... 

Before examining the way R D projects are chosen and managed it is useful to remind ourselves of the central role that R D plays in the totality of the company. The business processes are those of management and support for product innovation... 

Dr. Mesilaakso is currently Acting Director of the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (VERIFTN former CW Project) at the University of Helsinki. Before this, he worked at VERIFIN as a Research Scientist, Quality Manager and Research Director. He is a member of the Finnish National Authority of the CWC, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Defense of Finland, and a member of the OPCW Validation Group for data evaluation to the OPCW Central Analytical Database. 

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