Stakeholder and Cost Management - WRU

BACKGROUND

a. Needs for improvement

Widget's R Us Widgets' R Us (WRU) is the leading firm that produces quality widgets. This industry is performing well and it has stable market situations. WRU has four major department in the firm: accounting, sales, production and engineering. The designs that use by the firm in manufacturing of widgets are effective and support the entity in providing low price products to the consumers (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). Over a period of time demand has been increased and competition has been enhanced. In such condition WRU is facing trouble because average life cycle of the manufacturing the widgets is 12-15 months.

One of the major issue face by the firm that it is unable to meet the demand. Because manufacturing time of product development in 12-15 month and in such longer duration it gets fail to meet the high demand. Another problem in the workplace is it is unable to compete with the dynamic market demand. Due to high competition WRU has to make changes in its manufacturing process. Though, entity has made many innovations but still demand has not been matched. Another issue in the workplace is poor internal communication. Poor monitoring is another major problem in the business unit (Fleming and Koppelman, 2016). Due to poor controlling and monitoring department heads blame other departments for the problem. They do not take initiative to control over the issues.

b. Approaches, technologies relevant to the project

The main agenda of WRU is to sustain in the market for longer duration and gain competitive advantage. But due to several issues it might get failed to meet with its objectives. As it is identified that internal communication is the major problem in the firm. This communication approach is highly relevant to the project. Quality of final product is high depended upon the internal communication between various departments. If production department do not coordinate well with the engineering department then they will fail to identify the basic feature of design (Walker, 2015). That is why they fail to manufacture the widgets in less time. If they coordinate well with each others then it may help in minimizing errors and reducing the production timing. This would be beneficial for the WRU in manufacturing the widgets within 8 months and it will be able to meet with the demand. Furthermore, poor monitoring is also relevant to the project of WRU. If department heads take responsibilities and monitor the progress of each innovative idea properly then it would be beneficial for the company in reducing errors and getting positive results. By this way it will be able to meet with the insatiable demand (Meredith and et.al, 2016). As market is stable thus, if proper monitoring and controlling has been implemented then entity will be able to implement innovative ideas in effective manner. This will support in minimizing consequences and producing high quality widgets. This is the way through which WRU can gain competitive advantage in the market.

EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES

a. Alternative solutions

In order to meet with the objective it is essential for the WRU that to take support of alternative methods so that issues can be resolved ad entity can gain competitive advantage. Weight scoring method would be considered as best approach that can help in minimizing issues and improving condition of business unit (Binder, 2016). Cited firm first has to decide criteria that needs to be consider on first priority. Project manager has to give weight to each criteria so that importance of the factors can be realised in the project. Once weight score is being assigned then they have to calculate the weight score. WRU has to first identify the requirements and has to evaluate the criteria properly. This evaluation needs to be done fairly and in acceptable manner. After deciding the criteria manager has to customize field by using appropriate software. Once it has been customized then scoring needs to be done and then calculate the total scoring. This will help the manager in identifying the factor that need to be consider first in order to meet with the objective (Conforto and et.al, 2016).

b. Criteria, ranking, rating used to develop project selection matrix

There are various criteria on which this project can be selected properly. All these criteria help the project manager in making sound decision regarding selection of project. The main objective of WRU is to gain competitive advantage, for that it has to make connection with suppliers. 5 weight score or rank has been given to this criteria. Customers need to be indicated this is another criteria that has been ranked 2. Gap needs to be identified so that it can be measured that why innovative ideas are not giving accurate results (Zheng and et.al, 2016). This has been scored 4. Furthermore, other criteria are quick checking, major effective factors that are necessary for improvements, support from staff members and department head. Overall scoring to this project has been given 31. Another objective is to reduce manufacturing time, for that total scoring is 28. To enhance internal communication is another title that has been scored 23 whereas production capabilities enhancement has been scored 36. That describes that project needs to be selected on these criteria and rating schemes (Layton and Ostermiller, 2017). By this way WRU can become able to meet with its objective and will be able to gain competitive advantage.