GM592 Unit 10 Integrated Project Plan Example

Four Contradictions Found and Closed: A Unit 10 Integrated Project Plan for a Sawmill's Dry Kiln

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

GM592: Project Planning and the Project Plan

Unit 10 Integrated Project Plan

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The sawmill, its staff, its vendors and every figure are composite and illustrative; the standards and research cited are real.

Summary

The Tygart Ridge Hardwoods kiln project will deliver its first saleable charge on working day 190 from the charter. The cost baseline is $689,300, including $41,400 of contingency held by the operations manager. A management reserve of $35,000 is held by the two owners above the baseline, for a total authorization of $724,300, within their capital ceiling of $725,000. The controlling path runs through the electric utility's service upgrade, and the largest single risk is a late transformer.

Contradictions Log

The Project Management Institute describes integration as the work of making a project's plans and processes consistent with one another, so that decisions in one area are reflected in the others (Project Management Institute, 2021). Reading the earlier sections side by side found four places where they disagreed.

Cycle time. The requirements and scope promised a nominal cycle of eight days for the mill's most common oak thickness, and the capacity figures in sales' customer letter assumed that cycle from the first saleable charge. The vendor's quotation states eight days of drying from about 20 percent moisture content, plus loading, equalizing, conditioning and cooling, and the reference class gathered in the Unit 6 reflection shows first-season cycles running 20 to 40 percent longer. Resolution: the site acceptance test now reads that a full charge of 4/4 red oak dries within 11 days and meets every quality standard. Supply planning uses 11 days for the first three saleable charges, 10 for the next five and 8 thereafter, and the sales manager has corrected the customer letter.

Reporting hours. The quality and reporting plan added a weekly status and a monthly owners' review, but the cost baseline had no hours for them. Resolution: about 110 hours of the operations manager's and bookkeeper's time, $6,600 at loaded rates, were added to internal labor and drawn from contingency, which falls from $48,000 to $41,400. The cost baseline total is unchanged.

The custom drying agreement. Work package 7.4, closing the custom drying agreement, was in the work breakdown structure but had no activity in the network, so nothing scheduled the notice, the return of lumber or the reconciliation. Resolution: two activities were added after the first saleable charge, notice given and lumber returned and reconciled, finishing within the 60 days that requirement R-02 allows. Neither is on the controlling path.

The pad assumption. The scope statement assumed the existing concrete pad could carry the loaded kiln, to be confirmed before the kiln order. The order date passed in the schedule before the assumption log was updated, even though the load check had been done. Resolution: the structural engineer's report confirms the pad with minor repairs already priced in pad work, and the assumption is closed in the log with the report attached.

Each contradiction lived in the gap between two sections that had been written well on their own and never read against each other.

The Baselines

Scope. The scope statement with six deliverables, seven exclusions and the work breakdown structure of 38 packages, now with two added activities under package 7.4.

Schedule. The network of 41 activities plus the four quality activities and the two activities for the custom drying agreement, 47 in all, with the first saleable charge on day 190. The kiln chain has 12 days of float and the boiler piping chain 15.

Cost. Nine work package lines totaling $647,900 after the reporting hours, contingency of $41,400 and a cost baseline of $689,300, time-phased by work performed, with a separate cash table for the line of credit.

Subsidiary Plans

The appendices hold the full subsidiary plans, each condensed here to its decisions. Requirements: 28 statements with sources, now traced to packages, activities and tests. Estimates: 41 documented bases, with a reference class column added after the seminar. Resources: nine roles with weekly hours, the headrig rebuild moved two weeks. Quality: five standards, factory and site acceptance tests and records kept three years. Reporting: a weekly one-page status, a monthly owners' review and four escalation thresholds. Risk: a register of 14 risks with owners, whose expected costs set the contingency. Change control: written change requests, with the owners deciding any change above $5,000 or three working days.

Harold Kerzner argues that a project plan is only as useful as its consistency, because a plan whose parts disagree gives each team member a different project to work on (Kerzner, 2022).

One Requirement Traced Through the Plan

R-01 in the requirements. A business requirement with must priority: dried oak and maple in the two thicknesses the customer buys, delivered from the opening week of its spring plan, sourced to the sales manager and the customer's supply letter.

In the scope. It sits under deliverable D6, whose acceptance needs both the grader's charge report and the customer's sign-off on a sample bundle.

In the work breakdown structure. It lands in two commissioning packages, 7.2 and 7.3, the accepted charge and the customer's approval.

In the estimates. The first saleable charge carries 10 working days, and the corrected supply plan carries 11-day cycles for the first three charges.

In the schedule. The first saleable charge finishes on day 190, which the sales manager has converted to a calendar date and confirmed with the cabinet maker as two weeks before its spring production plan begins.

In the cost baseline. Its work is carried in internal labor and in the kiln, boiler and testing station lines.

In the quality plan. It is tested by the oven-dry, prong and degrade checks and the cabinet maker's trial bundle approval.

In reporting. The weekly status reports the forecast date of the first saleable charge every Monday.

What the Owners Are Asked to Accept

Signing the plan means accepting three things in advance. First, the date depends on the utility, which the mill cannot hurry, so a transformer delay will move the first saleable charge day for day. Second, the kiln will dry more slowly in its first season than its nominal cycle, which the supply plan already reflects. Third, contingency belongs to the operations manager for listed risks, while the reserve stays with the owners.

Approval

The plan is approved when both owners sign the approval page, which states the first saleable charge date, the cost baseline, the management reserve and the escalation thresholds. Quentin Fleming and Joel Koppelman note that a baseline becomes a measurement tool only once it is formally approved and placed under change control (Fleming & Koppelman, 2010). From the date of signature, changes to any baseline go through the change control process.

References

Fleming, Q. W., & Koppelman, J. M. (2010). Earned value project management (4th ed.). Project Management Institute.

Kerzner, H. (2022). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling (13th ed.). Wiley.

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.).