1.0 INTRODUCTION Managers typically
oversee a variety of operations. Some of these involve routine, repetitive activities, but other
involves non routine activities. Under the
non-routine are projects: unique, one-time operations designed to
accomplish a set of objectives in a
limited time
frame. Examples of projects include constructing a shopping complex, drainage
system, installing a new computer system,
introducing a new product or service to the market place. Projects may involve considerable cost.
Some have a long time horizon, and
some involve a large number of activities that must be carefully planned
and coordinated. Most are expected to be
completed within time, cost, and
performance guidelines. To accomplish these, goals must be established
and priorities set. Tasks must be
identified and time estimates made. Resource
requirements must also be projected and budget prepared. Once commenced, progress must be monitored to ensure that
project goals and objectives are
achieved.
2.0 OBJECTIVES After completing this
note, you should be able to:
(i) Discuss the behavioral aspects of projects in terms of project
personnel and the project manager.
(ii) Discuss the importance of a work breakdown structure in
project management
(iii) Give a general description of PERT / CPM techniques
(iv) Construct simple network diagrams.
(v) List the kinds of information that a PERT or CPM analysis can
provide.
(vi) Analyse networks with deterministic times.
(vii) Analyze networks with probabilistic times
(viii) Describe activity "crashing" and solve typical
problems.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Behavioural aspect of Project Management Project management differs from management of more traditional
activities which gives rise to a host of
rather unique problems. This section will
emphasize the nature of projects and their behavioural implications.
Emphasis will be laid on the role of the
project manager.
3.1.1 The Nature of Projects
Projects go through a
series of stages, a life cycle, which include planning, execution, and project phase out. During this
life cycle, a variety of skillful
requirements are involved.
In effect, projects units personnel are with diverse knowledge and
skills, most of whom remain together for
less than the full life of the project. Some personnel go from project to project as their contributions
become needed, some on a fulltime or
part-time basis, from their regular jobs. Certain kinds of organisation tend to be involved with project on a regular
basis; examples include consulting
firms, architects, writers and publishers.
3.1.2 The Project Manager
The central figure in a project is the project manager. He or she
bears the ultimate responsibility for
the success or failure of the project manager. The role of the project is one of an organizer -
a person who is capable of working
through others to accomplish the objectives of the project. Once the project is underway, the project
manager is responsible for effectively
managing each of the following:
(i) The work, so that all of the necessary activities are
accomplished in the desired
sequence.
(ii) The human resource, so that those working on the project have
direction and motivation.
(iii) Communications, so that everybody has the information they
need to do their work.
(iv) Quality, so that performance objectives are realized
(v) Time, so that the project can be completed on a time.
(vi) Costs, so that the project is completed within budget.
The job of project manager can be both difficult and rewarding.
The manager must coordinate and motivate
people who sometimes owe their loyal support to
other managers in their functional areas. In addition, the people who
work on a project frequently possess
distinct knowledge and skill that the project manager lacks.
Nevertheless, the manager is expected to evaluate and guide their
efforts. The rewards of the job of
project manager come from the challenges of the job, the benefits of being associated with a
successful project, and the personal
satisfaction of seeing it through to its conclusion.
3.1.3 The Merits and De-merits of Working on Projects People are chosen to work on special projects because the
knowledge or abilities they possess are
needed. In some instances, however, their supervisor may be unwilling to allow them to interrupts
their regular jobs, even on a part time
basis, because it may require training a new person to do a job that will
be temporary. Moreover, managers don't
want to lose the output of good workers.
The workers themselves are not always eager to participate in
projects because it may mean working for
two bosses who impose differing demands and may
cause disruption of friendships and daily routines, and the risk of
being replaced on the current job. In spite of the potential risks of being
involved in a project, people are attracted
by the potential rewards. One is the dynamic environment that surrounds
a project, often a marked contrast to
the more staid environment in which some
may feel trapped.
Then, too, projects may present opportunities to meet new people and to increase future job opportunities,
especially if the project is successful.
In addition, association with a project can be a source of status among fellow workers.
3.2 Project Life Cycle The length, size and
scope of projects vary widely according to the nature and purpose of the project. Nevertheless all projects
have something in common. They go
through a life cycle, which typically consists of five phases.
(i) Concept at which point the organisation recognizes the need
for a project or responds to a request
for a proposal from a potential client.
(ii) Feasibility analysis, which examines the expected costs,
benefits and risk of undertaking the
project.
(iii) Planning, this spells out the details of the work and
provides estimates of the necessary
human resources, time and cost.
(iv) Execution, during which the project itself is done. This
phase often accounts for the majority of
time and resources consumed by a project.
(v) Termination, during which closure is achieved. It should be noted that the phases can
overlap, so that one phase may not be
fully completed before the next phase begins. This can reduce the
time necessary to move through the life
cycle, perhaps generating some competitive
advantage and cost saving.
3.3 Work Breakdown Schedule
Because large projects usually involve a very large number of
activities, planners need some way to
determine exactly what will need to be done so that they can realistically estimate how long it
will take to complete the various
elements of the project and how much it will cost. This is often
accomplished by developing a work
breakdown structure (WBS), which is a hierarchical listing of what must be done during the
project. This methodology establishes a
logical framework for identifying the required activities for the
project. The framework is illustrated
below. The first step in developing the work
breakdown structure is to identify the major elements of the project.
These are the level 2 boxes in the structure
below. The next step is to identify the major
supporting activities for each of the major elements the level 3 boxes.
Then, each major supporting activity is
broken down into a list of the activities that
will be needed to accomplish it, the level 4 boxes.
3.4 Planning and Scheduling with Gantt Charts The Gantt chart is a popular tool for planning and scheduling
simple projects. It enables a manager to
initially schedule project activities and then to monitor progress over time by comparing planned
progress to actual progress. A Gantt
chart for a bank's plan to establish a new direct marketing department
is given in the figure below. To prepare
the chart, the personnel in charge of the project first identify the major activities that
would be required. Next, time estimates
for each activity is made, and the sequence of activities is determined.
Once completed, the chart would indicate
which activities will occur, their planned
duration, and when they will to occur. Then, as the project progresses,
the manager would be able to see which
activities were ahead of schedule and
which were delaying project. This enables the manager to direct
attention where it was needed most to
hasten the project in order to finish on schedule.
The obvious advantage of a Gantt chart is its simplicity, and this
accounts for its popularity. However,
Gantt Charts fails to reveal certain relationships among activities that can be crucial to
effective project management. For
instance, if one of the early activities in a project suffers a delay,
it would be important for the manager to
be able to easily determine which later activities would result in a delay.
3.5 PERT and CPM PERM (Program
Evaluation and Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path Method) are two of the most widely used
techniques for planning and coordinating
large -scale projects. By using PERT and CPM, managers are to obtain:
(i) A graphical display of project activities
(ii) An estimate of how long the project will take
(iii) An indication of which activities are the most critical to
timely project completion.
(iv) An indication of how long any activities can be delayed
without lengthening the project.
4.0 CONCLUSION We have been able to
see the need for a manager to be versatile and have creative and imaginative thought to the
smooth running of business. The need to
be evaluative and analytical has been greatly emphasized. Working round clock has been able to bring his dread
a reality.
5.0 SUMMARY Projects are made up
of special activities established to realize a given set of objectives in a short while. The non-routine
nature of project activities places a
set of demands on the project manager that are different in many respects from those the manager of more routine
operations activities require. PERT and CPM are two commonly used techniques
for developing and monitoring projects.
Although each technique was developed independently and for expressly different purposes, time
and practice have erased most of the
original differences, so that now there is little distinction between the
two. Either provides the manager with a
rational approach to project planning and a
graphical display of project activities. Both show the manager the
sequence of events which must be
completed on time to achieve timely project completion. Two slightly different conventions can be
used for constructing network diagram.
One designates the arrows as activities: the other designates the nodes as activities. This note has emphasized only
the activity-on-arrow model. In some situations, it may be possible to
shorten, or crash, the length of a
project by shortening one or more of the project activities. Typically,
gains are achieved by the use of
resources, although in some cases, it may be possible to transfer resources among project activities.
Generally, projects are shortened to the
point where the cost of additional reduction would exceed the benefit of additional reduction, or to a specified time.
NOTE 5 PRODUCTIVITY
1.0 INTRODUCTION
This note discusses
issues concerned with productivity. Productivity itself relates to how effective an organisation is
in the use of its resource. Here you
will learn how to differentiate between efficiency and productivity. Other things to learn in this note include the
impact of human behaviour on productivity,
and how productivity can be measured as well as improved.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
By the end of this note, you should be able to;
i. Define the term
productivity
ii. Explain why it is important to organizations
iii. Determine partial, multi-factor and total productivities
iv. Explain how productivity can be improved.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Productivity and Human Behaviour
One of the primary responsibilities of an operations manager is to
achieve productive use of an
organisations resource. The term "productivity" is used to describe this. Productivity is actually an
index that measures output (i.e. goods
and services) relative to the input (e.g. labour, materials, energy,
cost of equipment, and other appropriate
resources) used to produce them. It is usually
expressed as the ratio of output to input
Productivity = Output
Input
The ratio can be computed for a single operation, a department,
an organisation, or even the whole
country productivity measures can be based on
single input (i.e. partial productivity) on more than one in (i.e.
multi-factor productivity), or on all
inputs (i e total productivity) some of these measures are given in Table 1.
The choice of particular measure depends primarily on the purpose
of the measurement. For example, if the
purpose is to track improvements in labour
productivity, then labour becomes the obvious input measurement. Table 1: Examples of different types of
measures of productivity.
TYPE FORMULAR
Partial Output
Output Output Output
Measures Labour
Machine Capital Energy
Multifactor Output
Output
Measures Labour +
Machine L abour + Capital + Energy
Total Goods
or Services Produced
Measures All inputs
used to produce them
Operations managers are more interested in partial measures of
productivity Examples of such measure
include the following;
( a ) Labour Productivity
Units of output per labour hour
Units of output per shift
Value-added per labour hour
Naira value of output per labour hour
(b ) Machine productivity
Units of output per machine hour
Naira value of output per machine hour
(c ) Capital Productivity
units of output per Naira input
Naira value of output per Naira input
(d) Energy
Productivity
units of output per kilowatt- hour
Naira value of output per kilowatt -hour
Productivity measures are of prime importance at different levels.
For instance, in the case of an
individual department or organization, such measures can be used to track performance over time this
provides opportunities for operations
managers to judge performance, and to decide where improvements are
needed.
Productivity can also be used to determine the performance of an
entire industry or even the national
productivity of country as a whole. In a nutshell, productivity measurements serve as scorecards
of the effective use of resources. Operations manager plays a key role in
determining productivity. Their
challenge is to increase the value of output, relative to the cost of
input.
For example, if they can
generate more output of better quality by using the same amount of input productivity will definitely
increase. Again if they can maintain the
same level of output while reducing the use resources productivity will also increase. At the national level, productivity is
usually measured as the naira value of
output per note of labour. This measure depends on the quality of the
products and services generated in a
nation, as well as the efficiency with which they are produced.
Productivity is actually the prime determinant of a nation's
standard of living. If the output per
work hour goes up, the nation benefits from higher income levels, since the productivity of human
resources determines employee wages.
On the other hand, lagging or declining productivity lowers the
standard of living. For instance, wage
or price increases not accompanied by productivity increases usually lead to inflationary
pressures rather real increases in the
standard of living.
Examples on the
Calculation of Productivity Calculate
the productivity for the following operations:
(a) Three employees processed 600 insurance policies last week.
They worked 8 hours per day, 5 days per
week.
(b) A team of workers made 400 notes of a product, which is valued
by its standard cost of 10 each (before
markups for other expenses and profit). The accounting department reported that for
this job, the actual costs were N400 for
labour, N1,000 for materials, and N 300 for overhead.
Solutions
(a) Labour productivity = Policies processed
Employee hours
= 600
(3 employees) (40
hours/Employee)
= 5 policies/hour
(b) Multi-factor productivity
= Quantity of standard cost
Labour Cost + material cost + overhead cost
(400 notes)( N10/note) =N4,000
N400+ N1,000+ N300 =N1,700
= N2.35
3.2 Labour
Productivity Many companies today
are pushing hard to improve their labour productivity. For man of these companies, direct labour
cost remains a significant cost. Some
manufacturing operations are not yet automated, and never will be
because either it is not cost effective
or insufficient capital is available. In addition, many services remain direct-labour-intensive.
For these reasons, the cost of labour
and the need to improve the productivity of labour continues to receive management attention. We are therefore going
to focus on labour productivity in this
section.
The major factors
that affect labour productivity are contained in Figure 15.1. The figure clearly shows that the causes of
labour productivity are many.
Unfortunately, there are currently no sets of formulars that precisely
predict human behaviour, in general and
productivity in particular. It is however
gratifying to note that we can have enough understanding of employee behaviour, so as to remove some of the
uncertainty about why employees are
productive.
Another look at Figure 15.1 should reveal to you that three
major factors affect labour
productivity. These are the physical work environment; employee job performance; and product quality. In this
realisation, various staff groups are
making efforts such as industrial, process product and systems
engineering to develop better automation,
machines, tools, and work methods to enhance
labour productivity. The belief is their increasing productivity
through technology development is at
least as important as employee job performance in increasing productivity. The
productivity of all factors of production can also be directly increased through reduction in defects,
scrap, and re-work.
You need to realise
that employee job performance is a complex topic because no two people are exactly the same. Hence,
their abilities, personalities,
interests, ambitions, energy levels, education, training, and experience
are bound to vary considerably.
Operations managers often consider these factors since blanket or common approaches to
improving job performances may not be
effective for all and sundry.
Figure 15.1 Variables Affecting Labour Productivity 
It is in recognition of these differences that efforts are
being made by personnel, departments to
select employees who have the desired abilities to develop training programmes for the
improvement of employee skills. There is
a growing importance of employee training and education all over the world. Many organisation are aggressively
increasing their employee training
programmes for competitive advantage, and this has been off in boosted production and morale.
Motivation has been discovered to be the most complex
variable in the equation of
productivity. As Berelson and Steiner (1964) have defined the term, a motive "is an inner state that
energises, activates, or moves (hence
'motivation'), and that directs or channels behaviour toward
goals". In other words,
"motivation" is a general term applying to the entire class of
drives, desires, needs, wishes, and
similar forces.
One of the widely referred-to theories of motivation is the
"hierarchy of needs" theory
developed by Abraham Maslow. He saw human needs in the form of a hierarchy, starting in an ascending order
from the lowest to the highest needs,
and concludes that when one set of needs was satisfied, this kind of
need ceased to be a motivator. In this
sense, therefore, only unsatisfied needs are
motivators, or cause people to act.
The basic human needs identified by Maslow in an ascending
order of importance are the
following:
1. Physiological needs
These are the basic needs for sustaining human life itself - food,
water, clothing, shelter, sleep, and
sexual satisfaction. Maslow took the
position that until these needs are satisfied to the degree necessary
to maintain life, other needs will not
motivate people.
2. Security or Safety needs These are the needs to be free from
physical danger, and the fear or loss of
a job property, food, clothing or shelter.
3. Affiliation or Acceptance needs Since people are social beings, they need
to belong and to be accepted by others.
In other words, this means sense of belonging and love.
4. Esteem needs According
to Maslow, once people begin to satisfy their need to belong, they tend to want to be held in esteem both
by themselves, and by others. This kind
of need produces such satisfactions as power, prestige, status, and self-confidence.
5. Self-Actualisation needs Maslow regards this as the highest need
in his hierarchy. It is the desire to
become what one is capable of becoming, i.e. to maximise one's potential and to accomplish something.
In Nigeria today, many employees' lower-level needs
(physiological and safety) have been
mostly taken care of by the recent minimum wage law. For all workers in the country, Thehigher-level needs
(social, esteem and selfactualisation)
may therefore hold more promise for managers in their attempt to motivate employees.
To what extent can we use the understanding of employees'
needs to design a work environment that
encourages productivity?. Using Maslow's theory, if we can determine what class of needs is
currently important to our employees, then
we can apply the following framework given by Graither (1996). If productivity is seen by employees as a
means of satisfying their needs, high
productivity is likely to result. Once employees have their needs
satisfied through rewards that have been
conditional upon productivity, the process is
likely to be repeated. Labour
unions and work groups can influence employees to be either productive or unproductive.
For instance, if employees think that their work groups may treat them as outcasts because
they have been productive, they may not
cooperate with management in this productivity-reward-productivity cycle. This is the reason why operations managers
should recognise the influence that work
groups have on labour productivity. They therefore need to develop cooperative work groups. The also need to
influence group norms through effective
cooperation and communication.
3.3 How Productivity can be Improved
An organisation or a department can take a number of key
steps toward improving productivity.
Here are some of them as suggested by Stevenson
(1996):
l. Develop productivity measures for all operations. This is
based on the premise that measurement is
the first step in managing and controlling
an operation.
2. Look at the system as a whole in deciding which
operations are most critical. This is
based on the fact that it is the overall productivity that is important. This concept is illustrated by
Figure 15.2, which shows several
operations feeding their output into a bottle neck operation. The capacity of the bottle neck operation is less
than the combined capacities of the
operations that provide input, so notes queue up waiting to be processed. Productivity improvements to any
non-bottleneck operation will not affect
the productivity of the system. However, improvement in the bottleneck operation will lead to
increases productivity, up to the point
where the output rate of the bottleneck equals the output of the operations feeding it.
Figure 15.2: 
Develop methods achieving productivity improvements, such
as soliciting ideas from workers (e.g.
organising teams of workers, engineers,
and managers) studying how similar firms have increased productivity, and re-examining the way work
is done.
4. Estimate reasonable goods for improvement
5. Make it clear that management supports and encourages
productivity improvement. It is also
important to consider incentive to reward
workers for contributions.
6. Measure improvement and publicise them.
7. Don't confuse productivity with efficiency. This is
because efficiency is a narrower concept
that pertains to getting the best out of a given set of resources. Productivity, on the other hand,
is a broader concept that pertains to
effective use of overall resources. For example, an efficiency perspective on mowing a lawn given a hand
mower would focus on the best way to use
the hand mower; a productivity perspective would include the possibility of using a power
mower.
4.0 CONCLUSION
In this note, you have learned what productivity is and why
it is important. You have also learned
how organisations can improve productivity. You should now be able to compute partial, multi-factor
and total measures of productivity.
5.0 SUMMARY
One basic fact you have learned in this note is that it is
necessary for organisations, especially
the operations managers to achieve productive use of resources. This note has taken you through a
general discussion on productivity and
human behaviour and labour productivity in particular. The note that follows is also in line with attempts to
increase the efficiency, as well as
productivity of organisations.
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