Project Management Case Studies, 7th Edition

Part 19INDUSTRY SPECIFIC: CONSTRUCTION

Many project management situations or problems are somewhat complex and involve many interacting factors, all contributing to a common situation. For example, poor planning on a project may appear on the surface to be a planning issue, whereas the real problem may be the corporate culture, lack of line management support, or poor employee morale. The case studies in this chapter involve interacting factors.

Robert L. Frank Construction Company

It was Friday afternoon, a late November day in 2013, and Ron Katz, a purchasing agent for Robert L. Frank Construction, pored over the latest earned value measurement reports. The results kept pointing out the same fact: The Lewis project was seriously over budget. Man‐hours expended to date were running 30 percent over the projection, and, despite this fact, the project was not progressing sufficiently to satisfy the customer. Material deliveries had experienced several slippages, and the unofficial indication from the project scheduler was that, due to delivery delays on several of the project's key items, it was no longer possible to meet the scheduled completion date of the coal liquefaction pilot plant

Katz was completely baffled. Each day for the past few months as he reviewed the daily printout of project time charges, he would note that the purchasing and expediting departments were working on the Lewis project, even though it was not an unusually large project, dollarwise, for Frank. ...