Project Control Mechanisms Research Articles

A complete lean system design for team-oriented product development projects

PurposeThe inherent variability on process times and demand are the factors that prevent the efficient application of lean philosophy in multi-project product development (PD) environments. Considering this variability, a hybrid push–pull project control system is developed, and value stream costing (VSC) analysis is performed to reflect the relation between project lead time, capacity and project cost. The assessment of the push/pull project control on lead time improvement and long-term savings on capacity have been aimed with the proposed complete design structure.Design/methodology/approachIn a team-based structure, formed through clustering, push control techniques for planning tasks within cross-functional teams and pull control techniques for planning tasks between cross-functional teams are developed. The final step evaluates the proposed structure through VSC and long-term savings have been pointed out, especially in terms of freed-up capacity. For the validation of the proposed methodology, an office furniture manufacturing firm’s PD department has been considered and the performance of the hybrid system has been observed through simulation experiments and based on the simulation results, the lean system is evaluated by VSC.FindingsThe results of simulation experiments show a superior performance of the proposed hybrid push/pull project control mechanism under different settings of cycle time between projects or shortly project cycle time, dispatching rules within teams and variability levels. The results of the Box-Score (tool to apply VSC) indicate increased capacity in the long term to add extra projects during the planning period with the same project lead time and without additional cost.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough extensive simulation experiments have been performed to quantify the effect of project control structure and positive results have been reported on lead time and cost, the proposed design structure has not been tested in all existing PD environments.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, the quantification of the effect of hybrid project control with VSC is the first attempt to be applied in lean PD projects.

Exploring the Potentials of Smart and Sustainable Project Controls Within the Construction Industry: Drivers and Challenges

This paper examines the boundaries of project controls throughout the project life-cycle on construction projects. The researcher evaluates the factors contributing to the success and failures of projects, as well as identifies what project control mechanisms are currently being used in the construction industry to control projects throughout the project life-cycle. The details of the study reveal that although efforts have been made to control projects in various aspects of the construction project life-cycle, however these control mechanisms seem to be mis-jointed and scattered amongst construction professionals, and do not effectively work to address project controls, but only take effect after issues appear in a project. With the absence of a clearly defined structure to adopt project control mechanisms throughout the project life

Construction management scheduling and control: The familiar historical overview

The paper suggests that ‘management by exception’ is an historical default control mechanism based on the perception of control as a static process. However, increasingly scholars claim that a dynamic and proactive systems model is a more effective form of project control. These findings are the result of an historical desktop research method that analysed content from a small sample of scheduling methods and control approaches found in online and university library resources. The concept of control has historically influenced both visualization and analytics of different scheduling methods for construction project management. This paper focuses on two control ideals; static and dynamic control mechanisms. The overview begins with the description of early graphical scheduling techniques: Gantt charts and Harmonogram. It continues with examples of contributors to scheduling and control that include: CPM, PERT, LOB, Flowline and Location Based Management. The finding of this simple history suggests that change is the constant element for project control mechanisms. An object-based digital environment such as the data-rich building information modelling (BIM) appears to be continuing the change for new scheduling methods and control mechanisms.

Sustainable building energy efficiency retrofit for hotel buildings using EPC mechanism in China: analytic Network Process (ANP) approach

Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit (BEER) is considered as a valuable way to improve energy efficiency of high-energy-consumption buildings. Sustainable BEER helps integrate sustainable development strategy into existing buildings and retrofit projects. To ensure BEER projects that can fulfill the sustainable development strategy, Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) is one possible market mechanism to deliver energy efficiency projects. Sustainable BEER under the EPC mechanism is a comprehensive system which involves the various demands of sustainable dimensions, performance criteria and groups of project success factors, making multi-criteria decisions become a challenging problem for decision makers. This paper aims to examine the interrelationships of sustainable BEER by focusing on an existing hotel building. EPC mechanism is applied in the case study and an effective Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach is also employed in the research. The result indicates that sustainable BEER in hotel buildings under the EPC mechanism is mainly determined by project control mechanism, available technology, organizing capacity of the team leader, trust, accurate Measurement and Verification (M&V), and team workers' technical skills. Decision makers should dedicate more attention to these aspects. From the research findings, several policy implications are proposed in this paper.

Project control mechanisms in non-project-based organisations in Asia

This study investigates the contingency between project type and project control mechanisms for projects done in non-project-based organisations in Asia. Seven case studies were conducted in China and Nepal, where project managers were repeatedly interviewed. An interpretivistic investigation using semi-structured interviews and qualitative analysis was conducted. Four project types (depending on clearness of goals and methods) and their distinct organisational control mechanisms (bureaucratic behaviour, bureaucratic output, clan and self control) were identified, showing a contingency between type of project and control mechanisms employed. Furthermore, the application of control tools within control mechanisms was investigated. Results showed variance across project type. The study results have implications for the staffing of projects, reward systems and the level of authority granted to project managers.

The cluster development potential of a regional economy

The paper discusses approaches to the formation of industrial clusters in Russian regions and proposes a methodological structure for a clustering project. A case study of a titanium processing cluster (“Titanium Valley”) and a Ural automobile cluster, being developed in Sverdlovsk oblast, is used to reveal their key design elements: the justification for the cluster form of business organization, the evaluation of development premises, the description of cluster goals, tasks, structure, and composition, the project control mechanism and implementation phases, and government support measures.

Exploratory Study on Effective Control Structure in Global Business Process Sourcing

In an IT-intensive global business process sourcing (global BPS) project, the structure chosen to control knowledge transfer is critical. The objective of this study is to explore the effective control structure for knowledge transfer in IT-intensive global BPS project. The research methods used in this study are a case study and survey. First, a generic framework on the control structure for knowledge transfer is derived from extant literature. This framework is applied to a case analysis of a service provider in Mauritius. As a result of the case analysis, a model for control structure facilitating knowledge transfer in global BPS is derived. The model includes a social control mechanism, communication mechanism, project control mechanism as independent variables, and governance mechanism as a moderator variable. The degree of knowledge transfer and success of global BPS are used as dependent variables. The propositions describing the relationships between the variables are formulated. A total of 19 survey items were generated for these variables. As results of the survey, the model is revised and a set of more refined propositions are generated in the conclusion. Both service providers and clients can benefit from this study by focusing on control mechanisms that affect the knowledge transfer and BPS success.

Managing multi-project environments through constant work-in-process

This paper proposes new project control mechanisms that limit the number of active projects in multi-project environments. Incoming projects first enter a backlog list. Then, they are staggered into a network of inter-related resources in a way that maintains stable load on the system. The proposed mechanisms adapt the concept of constant work-in-process (CONWIP) that was proposed earlier in the context of production management. We report on an extensive set of simulations that were conducted with several types of projects in dynamic settings. We discuss possible preference rules for the backlog list and the resource queues within the system and demonstrate the superiority of a new rule whose objective is to achieve a dynamic balance of the loads of the various resources.

The lean approach to project management

The early work in project management introduced project-oriented systems and methodologies, previously lacking in the project direct participants. The emphasis inevitably was on centralised project teams owning the systems. The paper illustrates through case studies the developed concept of lean project management, which recognises that the system and philosophy is now better understood by participants, who themselves provide and contribute to the project control mechanisms. The project manager becomes an individual client-based leader of the project team, the source of decision making and the conduit for communication. The approach has been successful on complex public arts buildings over 10 years and could be of general application in a wide range of project management and management by project environments.

Worker Cooperatives as Industrial Policy: The Case of the "Scottish Daily News"

Arguments for state support of declining industries generally stress a need to maintain employment or slow down redundancy. The strongest political case for support is commonly made by firms whose factors see little immediate alternative demand for their services, hence possess low shadow wages. Greater long-run possibilities of factor reallocation cause political pressure to diverge from economic arguments, but it appears to be difficult for the latter to influence political payoffs and decisions. A sequence of politically optimal but myopic decisions may seriously worsen resource allocation: see e.g. Gelb (1977). Nevertheless, slow growth and low investment reduce the speed of economic restructuring in developed countries while capital and technology flows lead to the swift creation of manufacturing capacity in middle-income developing countries. International agreements limit selective interventions in product markets, while the increased power of organized labour and cushioning of the unemployed weaken traditional market mechanisms of factor reallocation. Given anything like the present political systems of most developed countries, the reconciliation of efficient long-run resource allocation with pressure for selective support of declining industries promises to be one of the most intractable problems of the 1980s: see, for example, World Bank (1978). Support methods must be developed which satisfy immediate pressures for cushioning, yet lead to minimal longerrun resource misallocation. In 1974 the Labour government founded three worker cooperatives: Meriden, Kirkby and the now defunct Scottish Daily News (SDN). The political furor over their merits has obscured the cooperatives' unique significance as testing grounds for an alternative pattern of employment-maintaining state support, temporary or permanent in nature. We here analyse the SDN financing method as industrial cushioning and suggest the reappraisal of attitudes to cooperativism, not necessarily on ideological grounds, but because of the method's potential, in certain circumstances, as a factor screening and project control mechanism, helping to reconcile short-run political pressure with longer-run economic efficiency without the need for difficult, costly direct monitoring. Worker control may be a useful managerial strategy for the state. The next section outlines salient points of the SDN cooperative. We then note three reasons why conventional support policies tend to lead to resource misallocation and indicate the advantages of the SDN intervention method. Section 4 models, at individuallevel, its implications for factor selection and internal efficiency. In Section 5 the model is