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MANAGING PROJECTS

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Projects represent nonroutine business activities that often have long-term strategic ramifications for a firm. In this chapter, we examined how projects differ from routine business activities and discussed the major phases of projects. We noted how environmental changes have resulted in increased attention being paid to projects and project management over the past decade. In the second half of the chapter, we introduced some basic tools that businesses can use when planning for and controlling projects. Both Gantt charts and network diagrams give managers a visual picture of how a project is going. Network diagrams have the added advantage of showing the precedence between activities, as well as the critical path(s). We wrapped up the chapter by showing how these concepts are embedded in inexpensive yet powerful software packages such as Microsoft Project. If you want to learn more about project management, we encourage you to take a look at the Web site for the Proj...
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Managing Risk in The Supply Chain

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A study conducted by Cranfield University for the UK government defines supply chain vulnerability as: an exposure to serious disturbance, arising from risks within the supply chain as well as risks external to the supply chain. The same study identified a number of reasons why modern supply chains have become more vulnerable. These factors are considered in more depth: A focus on efficiency rather than effectiveness, The globalisation of supply chains, Focused factories and centralised distribution, The trend to outsourcing, Reduction of the supplier base.
Many organisations today are addressing the issues of what has come to be termed ‘business continuity’. In practice, however, there tends to be a limited focus for much of business continuity management. There is a strong focus on IT and internal process management but often the wider supply risk dimension is not considered. This is paradoxical since it can be argued that the biggest risk to business continuity may be in the wider network of which the individual business is just a part.
Seven-stage approach to the management of supply chain risk: Understand the supply chain, Improve the supply chain, Identify the critical paths, Manage the critical paths, Improve network visibility, Establish a supply chain continuity team, Work with suppliers and customers.
Because even the best managed supply chains will hit unexpected turbulence or be affected by events that are impossible to forecast, it is critical that resilience be built into them. Resilience implies the ability of a system to return to its original or desired state after being disturbed. Resilient processes are flexible and agile and are able to change quickly. In this latter respect it is important to realise that velocity alone is not enough – it is acceleration or the ability to ramp up or down quickly that matters so far as resilience is concerned. Supply chain resilience also requires ‘slack’ at those critical points that constitute the limiting factors to changes in the rate of flow.

 

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