STPS251 – Strategies for Team-based Engineering Problem Solving
Sections 02 – Mechanical Engineering
Engineering Design and Graphics Communication
Fall 2010
Assignment: Project Management Report (Draft 1)
Instructor: Dr. Jamal Ahmad & Dr. David Moore
Date: 03/10/2010
Team name: The A Team
Team Members:
Abdulaziz Mohamed Rashed Mosabbah Zahmi - 920012271
Ali Imran Iqbal Baqar - 920013730
Salim Saeed Ali Obaid Binnayea Al Qayedi - 920012800
Yasirbur Rahman Moshiur Rahman - 920013449
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Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Project Deliverables ........................................................................................................................ 3
Research .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Project Plan ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Project Schedule.............................................................................................................................. 5
Project Tracking .............................................................................................................................. 7
Budget ............................................................................................................................................. 7
Problem solving strategy................................................................................................................. 8
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 8
References ....................................................................................................................................... 8
Appendix ......................................................................................................................................... 9
Appendix A ................................................................................................................................. 9
Appendix B ............................................................................................................................... 10
Appendix C ............................................................................................................................... 12
Appendix D ................................................................................................................................. 9
Appendix E................................................................................................................................ 10
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Introduction
A rising quality of life and high rates of resource consumption patterns have had an
inadvertent and negative impact on the municipal environment - generation of wastes far beyond
the handling capacities of urban governments and agencies. Cities are now struggling with the
problems of high volumes of waste generated by people, the costs involved in waste
management, the disposal technologies and methodologies, and the impact of wastes on the local
and global environment.
But these problems have also provided a window of opportunity for cities to find
solutions involving the community and the private sector, innovative technologies and disposal
methods; and also involving behavior changes and spreading awareness. These issues have been
fully demonstrated by good practices from many cities around the world including “The Center
of Waste Management” in Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. The government of Abu Dhabi has set out its
commitment to improving waste management across the Emirates. This Center coordinates the
policy, strategy and contractual systems of waste management across the Emirates of Abu Dhabi.
The people who live in emirates accumulate 20 million tons of solid waste each year.
This waste is polluting the environment and is the main cause of spreading diseases. The people
of the emirates require recycling of a number of items including aluminum cans which take up a
lot of space in waste bins due to which other solid waste products are not able to dispose
completely in waste bins; causing pollution. So, the purpose of our project is to design and
construct a hand-operated device that will reduce the volume of the aluminum cans by at least
75%. Our device will be a benefit for the people of Emirates as it can be kept in their kitchen
same as any other home appliances and can also be used by children. Not only the people of
Emirates but this device can also be used in all the countries where aluminum cans are making a
mess or pollution.
The purpose of this report is to give a basic idea to our client about our project design and
to show the main objective and scope of our project design. Further in our report we showed
Gantt chart and linear responsibility table in order to explain our project management plan. Our
main client is the director of “The Center of Waste Management. The budget was calculated to
be 50 AED approximately including the labor cost. We must focus to keep our budget to a
minimum level, develop ideas to keep improving our device plan and have a backup plan to refer
to incase if we are not able to complete a task.
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Project Deliverables
Task
Deadline
MOU
22/09/10
Project Management Report
04/10/10
Preliminary Design Report
01/11/10
Detail Design Report
22/11/10
Poster and Model
13/12/10
Final Project documentation
DVD
20/12/10
21/12/10
Throughout the semester our team will be submitting the project documents in order to
satisfy and to inform our client about the project’s progress. The first and most important
document, Memorandum of understanding has already been submitted. We will provide our
client with the Preliminary Design Report by 01/11/10 and our Final Project documentation will
be delivered before 20/12/10. Simultaneously our team will be working on the poster, the DVD
and the Data Retrieval system (DRS) as a web page. The poster will be done in order to promote
our design and to create awareness among the students about the waste disposal problem. The
DVD and web page will be done in order to backup our research documents and our device
designs.
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Research
In our research, we have come across several models of can crushers that do a good job
of crushing cans effectively. But, none the less, there were limitations to every model. All these
models had their own objectives and goal that they achieved convincingly. Our purpose of
carrying out this research was to gain information on designs that already exist in market and to
understand their mechanism. Plus we needed to analyze whether the design was able to achieve
its goals, how efficient it was in doing so, what could have been done to improve its design and
how it was going to help design our model of can crusher.
Before the research, we had limited knowledge of our project. But after doing the
research, we came to understand that there were many factors that contribute to a design. This is
primarily dependent on the objectives the system was designed to achieve. Our objective is to
reduce the volume of a can by at least 75%. There are two ways of doing it. Either we crush the
can vertically, from end-to-end. But from our research, we found out that it is much harder to
crush cans vertically. We also learned that, when crushing cans from side-to-side, it is possible
for a device to trap air inside the can thus requiring an extreme amount of pressure to compress
[1]
. Therefore, in our design of the system we have to take into account that air does not get
trapped inside can. And also, when cans are crushed from end to end, it occupies less volume and
there is less possibility of sharp edges being exposed [1].
Another method to crush can is to buckle the can in the middle, and then flatten the can
with its ends facing in one direction. This method is much easier because this requires less force.
But the problem with this method is that it takes up more storage space that its counterpart [2]. So
there is a tradeoff in both methods. Now it is our responsibility to use the right method that
accomplishes our objectives more effectively than the other.
In our research, we found some models having springs attached to them. This is because
there is a possibility for the handle to get stuck after operations. So the springs will prevent this
from happening as the springs will immediately pull the handle back when released. This also
helps to reset the device to its original position, thus making it easier to use [3].
There are also secondary objectives that we must keep in our mind when designing our
system. Our client requires the device to be attractive, portable, hand operated and is able to be
hung from cabinet doors or kitchen counters. So we as engineers have to use our skills and
knowledge to improvise our design to fit these descriptions that fulfills the objectives and
constrains.
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Project Plan
There are 4 members in our team and all are Mechanical Engineers they will therefore be
able to apply laws and equations of force and energy to convert the user input power to
compressive force effectively with less complex mechanism. Besides being just mechanical
engineers, our team also has a diverse mixture of skills. For example:
Salem Saeed
1. Leadership
2. Organization
3. Sketching/ drawing
4. Writing skills “Communication skills”
5. Solid works “CAD”
Ali Imran
1. Writing skills “Communication skills”
2. Leadership
3. Proofreading
4. Time management/ Organizer
Abdulaziz Mohamed
1. Solid works “CAD”
2. Research
3. Proofreading
4. Presentation “Communication skills”
Yasirbur Rahman
1. Writing skills “Communication skills”
2. Proofreading
3. Presentations “Communication skills”
4. Research
5. Leadership
Work Breakdown Structure
The Work Breakdown Structure (Appendix A) provides a detailed list of tasks and sub tasks that
must be carried out that we must complete to reach our goal. This makes our vision much clear
as we can focus on each sub tasks that relates to a major task. These tasks include the analysis,
conceptual design, design phase, evaluation and the final model.
Project Schedule
There are several tools that can be used to keep track of our progress. Our choice of
software is Microsoft Project 2007 which can help us design Gantt chart, allocate tasks and
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resources, and tables. We chose Microsoft Project 2007 because of its simple user interactions
interface and the learning curve that it provides to new users
Gantt Chart: The Gantt chart (Appendix C) was created using Microsoft office Project,
which help to organize the project and estimate the completion time, cost and budget and assign
members to do the tasks. The project started in Mon 8/30/10 and estimated to finish in Wed
12/22/10. The project was divided to few parts. It started team establishing, problem definition,
project management, preliminary design, and detailed design and will finish by final design.
Members were assigned to different tasks depend on their skills. For example, some tasks like
writing reports requires the whole team to work on them and some other tasks like sketching or
modeling requires one or two members. So we planned to split the team sometimes to start more
than one task in the same time. The project is 25% completed and the completed tasks are team
establishing, problem definition and project management. An important note should be
considered that there are three milestones in this project, which are the project plan presentation
on Mon 10/4/10, Preliminary Design Presentation on Mon 11/1/10 and the last milestone is Final
Presentations on Mon 12/13/10.
To sum up, we can say that The Gantt chart shows our team’s past, current, and future
tasks and subtasks while keeping track of progress and deadlines. The dates in the Gantt chart
show the estimated time to complete each assigned tasks or subtasks. The deadline for our
project ends on 22nd Dec 2010. So the tasks are set according to the due date of our final report.
As we finish each task, we can proceed with the next step towards our final goal and also be able
to keep record of our progress.
Linear Responsibility Chart (LRC): The linear responsibility (Appendix B) chart splits
tasks and subtasks amongst the team members. The LRC identifies the team member, clients,
stakeholder, and users who are responsible for completion of tasks and subtask. It also discusses
about the budget, cost of equipments and resources. The salary for our team members and the
cost of resources will be as follows:
 hourly wages to team members:
 Seniors: 120Dh/Hr, Juniors: 100Dh/Hr, Sophomores: 80Dh/Hr
 computer lab cost: 100Dh/Hr
The main purpose of the LRC is to ensure that the workload is divided equally and fairly among
the team members.
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Project Tracking
Percent Complete Matrix (PCM): The PCM monitors the progress the team is making
by keeping track of the completed and uncompleted tasks and subtasks. The PCM basically
monitors our time management skills. The PCM will be used to check whether the team is able to
achieve tasks on time. And finally, the PCM gives an estimated percentage of the main progress
of the team towards accomplishing the final design.
The team will use Microsoft Project 2007 for project planning and tracking in order to
determine the progress of our team. Using the PCM the team can decide whether we are on time
or behind schedule, so that the team can take the necessary measures to meet deadlines.
Microsoft Project has a dedicated column to show the completed and uncompleted tasks and
subtasks from where the software will calculate the total percentage of work completed for the
main project
Budget
The budget (Appendix D) was generated using Microsoft project and it shows the cost of
each task. The cost calculation depends on the duration of the task, numbers of working hours
each day, the members assigned to that task and number of assigned members. The wage is in
Dirham (AED) so as shown in the table below; the total cost was 19380 AED and the cost of
each task. The resources were two juniors’ members, two sophomores’ members and one
computer lab. Juniors’ members each earn 100AED per hour while sophomores’ members each
earn 80AED per hour and the computer lab costs 100AED. The working hours per day were two
to three hours.
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Problem solving strategy
Our team has straight forward strategies. These strategies help the team to increase the
awareness of the objectives and improve the quality of the work. One strategy is to record all the
tasks involved in order to achieve our objectives. The task recorded and scheduled in order to
help tracking time and achieve the final objective on time. Keeping in touch with the client is
also one of our strategies. We inform all updates to client in regular progress reports which will
be given by the end of every deliverable to keep the client satisfied about the team’s progress.
Each team member takes responsibilities for their actions. Each team member plans for the
unexpected circumstances and record all the tasks (project tracking) with any unpredicted
problem that may arise after processing on that task. These strategies of tracking our project will
help us in the future if any modifications arise up after our project’s completion and also it can
help us in case of execution of our project.
Conclusion
This is our project management plan and you have seen our Gantt chart with timeline.
The Gantt chart will be the most useful of all the tools in the tracking and incase of execution of
this project as it will help the team manage their time and work effectively. We have the best
members in our team especially for this project (refer to Team members and key skills section)
and we are 100% sure that we will complete this project on time. With this, the team would
sincerely request the client to provide permission to carry on with the proposed project plan.
References
[1]Larry M. Belfills,”Can crusher,” U.S. Patent 4133261, Jan. 9, 1979
[2] James D. Shelly,”Aluminum can crusher,” U.S. Patent 4292891, Oct. 6, 1981
[3]John A. Murray, “Self-standing aluminum can crusher,” U.S. Patent 7360484 B1, Apr. 22,
2008
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Appendix
Appendix A
Team Establishing
Problem Definition
- Team Name and Logo
- Team Website
- Team Charter
- Objective Tree
- Research Assignment
- Identify Client Requirements
- Establishing Constraints
- Letter of Understanding
- Revised Client Statement
- Budget
Project Management
Work break down of
the can crusher
- Gantt Chart
- Linear responsibility table
- Percent complete matrix
- Project management report &
presentation
- Client’s Approval
- Problem Definition
Preliminary Design &
Deliverables
- Assign functions & Means
- Alternative ideas
- Morph Chart
- Design Sketches
- Conceptual Design
- 3D Model
- Evaluating/ modifying Sketches
- Analysis & design modification
- deliver Preliminary Report &
Presentation
Detailed design &
testing the design
- Design calculation
- Design Testing
- Presentation & Written Report
Final design & Final
design Deliverables
- Final CAD model
- Final Report
- Final Presentation
- Poster & Model
Figure 1: Work Breakdown Chart (WBS)
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Appendix B
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Figure 2 Linear Responsibility Chart (LRC)
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Appendix C
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Figure 3 Gantt Chart
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Appendix D
Figure 4 Budget
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Appendix E
Figure 5 Compilation Matrix
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