Huntsville Plant Project
Project Resource Allocation & Findings

Within the scope of our new project for SEITZ Corporation we are scheduling resources currently, and crunching raw data to establish a timeline of trying to meet the June 30, 2012 deadline.

2011
Rego Hurtado
Project Management, Inc.
5/1/2011
Huntsville Plant Project
Project Resource Allocation & Findings

Within the scope of our new project for SEITZ Corporation we are scheduling resources currently, and crunching raw data to establish a timeline of trying to meet the June 30, 2012 deadline.

2011
Rego Hurtado
Project Management, Inc.
5/1/2011

Introduction
The following analysis is based on raw input data utilizing Microsoft Project 2010 scheduling for the new building in Huntsville Alabama. As you know we are focusing on providing an efficient project schedule to meet the current deadline set for June 30, 2012. It is established that a new building will be built upon the idea that SEITZ Corporation will become launched straight to the top of the industry. In this analysis you will find a critical path within our scheduling that establishes the shortest amount of time it would take to complete mandatory tasks; a rundown of the current scheduling along with resource allocation and any changes that need to be made. If you have any questions feel free to send me an email, or for the quickest reply please give me a call.
Resource Allocation
What is resource allocation? As project managers we are tasked with finding the right people and putting them in the situations that will provide the best results. As a corporation that has a lot of pride within itself, providing the best plastic bottles available, we are allocating the best resources for every task we have within our means. The project for building this new site in Alabama is highly prioritized and involves a huge commitment from all team members to establish their roles and put forth more effort than normal. Having clear priorities within a project is important as well as a clear process for mediating the inevitable conflict in priorities. (Fitzgerald) With this we have to be ready for anything when it comes to starting the project, and that is a huge reason why we crunch the numbers that are available now, to hopefully mitigate the issues of the future.
If we over allocate resources we are not doing our jobs, we are setting up for disaster. And these numbers available to me right now show that we have a dependency on the facility specialist. From within our current numbers we would be running about a week behind schedule in the beginning months of the project from April 2011 to roughly October 2011 because of the dependence upon our facility specialist, though this is true we have a few options available to us to establish a timeline that meets our June 30, 2012 deadline. * Option A: Increase our deadline by 2 weeks to July 13, 2012. This option allows us to maintain the schedule as planned without bringing on another facility specialist. * Option B: Hire a secondary facilities specialist that is able to help out when needed, this way we are able to allocate two facility specialists to keep the schedule in-line with our June 30, 2012 deadline.
We must understand that making this decision will have an effect on the project charter in which will need to be updated to reflect an addition of resources and or a change to the schedule within the scope of the project. It must be established that both of these decisions will increase the cost of the project and our budgetary numbers will be presented to you in the following weeks. The reason being is because we will be adding to the baseline of our project and the costs will be reported in the following weeks. (Gido)
Risk Analysis As with any project we have to involve ourselves with risk, and as the project manager I highly disapprove of maintaining the current course of action by over-utilizing our facilities specialist. (Gido) We eliminate a huge portion of that risk by simply adding an additional facility specialist, and pushing forward with our scheduling priorities. This will increase costs, but with the priority of the tasks at hand the benefit trade-off is very impactful to the project at hand.
Conclusion
In conclusion, our current resource allocation does not meet the deadlines of June 30, 2012 and we have offered a few of our own solutions to alleviating these drawbacks. We have established that the facility specialist rang up approximately 662hrs in our initial number crunching diagnosis, and were able to balance that out with a secondary facility specialist. As we have pointed out before, we will increase costs by doing this, but the costs outweigh the potential for not meeting our primary deadlines. Attached is a list of the tasks that would be associated with the Facility Specialist which would have him completely over allocated, from helping to select an architect, to installing equipment, we do need the expertise but as a manager we have to mitigate the risk involved with over-extending someone’s human capabilities. As we continue to plan this endeavor, we will uncover many things that may need to change and hopefully with this pre-planning we were able to reduce the amount of changes we will make later. Thank you.

References
Fitzgerald, D. (2003, April 21). The keys to resource allocation | TechRepublic. TechRepublic - A Resource for IT Professionals. Retrieved February 20, 2011, from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-keys-to-resource-allocation/5031746
Gido, J., & Clements, J. (2012). Successful Project Management, 5th Edition (5th ed.). Mason, OH: Joe Sabatino.