The Custom Woodworking Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Custom Woodworking Company - Essay Example First of all, the project went wrong from the initiation phase itself. In fact, in the initiation phase, the idea for the project is to be ‘fully explored and elaborated’ (Baars, 2006, p. 3). In addition, a proper decision regarding the purpose of the project, the parties to be involved, and the base of support to be provided should all be decided. Evidently, the initiation phase had to answer such questions as the purpose of the project, the feasibility of the project, the people to be included in the project, what results are to be obtained, and the possible boundaries of the project. In other words, according to Heyworth (2002, p. 12), the project concept phase requires solid and clear decision-making process. For this purpose, first of all, a project priority list should be made with clearly defined goals of the project. In fact, there is a lack of this understanding of priority in the case of Woody 2000. For example, there is no project priority list. Instead the pr oject is trying to achieve a number of goals at the same time. Firstly, there is the desire to expand the manufacturing process in order to harvest the benefits of the commercial construction in south-western BC. Secondly, the company wanted to solve the problem of falling production efficiency due to less manufacturing space. When the company develops the project concept, it is not clear as to which goal it is trying to get. One can see that this happened because of lack of coordinated leadership. To illustrate, the company management brought too many people to the concept phase, including Bruce Sharpe who wanted to expand business, Miles Faster who wants to increase production efficiency, John Carpenter who wants computer controlled automation, and Kim Cashman and Spencer Moneysworth who want to cut costs. As a result, what happened was a disjoined decision making. It happens because the people in the phase possessed various ideas about what the project should be. In order to solv e the problem, it was necessary for the team to decide what has to be the priority. As a result of all of these, even when the project was approved, it lacked a specific definition as the project was trying to reach various outcomes at the same time. In other words, different members were concerned about different outcomes. In addition, one can see that the estimated cost is $17 million. However, Woody has decided to spend a maximum of $17 million. It is very evident that a project is likely to cost more than the roughly estimated cost. Thus, the decision to spend not more than the roughly estimated amount will cause financial troubles for the project The real objective of the project could have been to expand the manufacturing process in order benefit from the boom in construction. In order to achieve this objective, the company could adopt a number of different strategies. First of all, the company could start another manufacturing unit in a different place. As already seen in the case study, there was a property available at attractive price some fifteen miles away from the head office. It was possible for the company to develop a new production unit without disrupting the existing production unit. Another option for the company was to expand its existing production plant, and thus raise production capacity. However, the best possible solution at this point is to start a new production plant in the new profitable location with all modern