1. Define the main characteristics of successful project managers and address specifically two bad things that unsuccessful project managers sometimes do. The best project managers are those who consistently deliver, on time and within budget, projects that meet or exceed stakeholders ' expectations. (Levinson, 2008) Project Managers interact with different types of people at different levels within the organization and outside the organization. Since their responsibilities include directing and coordinating various resources throughout the life cycle of the project, it is important the Project Managers have certain characteristics to ensure project success. The main characteristics of a successful project manager include: They are very organized …show more content…
Inexperienced Project Managers - Another trait of an unsuccessful project manager is the lack of experience. Sometimes we find out that the PM is not well versed on the project area, even though they have a SME on the project team, it is really important for the PM to have some extent of idea on the project area. Other mistakes made by an inexperience PM is putting too many projects into production at once and by ignoring the consequences resulting for making such a decision. 2. Lean management is viewed by many as the means to foster positive reforms in industry. Share your views on lean manufacturing from the viewpoint of a project manager. The idea behind lean is to maximize customer value while eliminating waste which means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. This means the main aim of lean management is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste (LEI, 2009). Lean manufacturing is based on efficiencies, adding value to a product and removing wasteful steps in production (Summers, 2011). Waste is considered anything that doesn 't add value to the end product. In terms of efficiencies, this is done by focuses on a customer needs, i.e. what is the customer willing to pay for? In order to deal with lean manufacturing, there are key stages involved; identify waste, analyze waste, find the root cause, solve the root cause and repeat the cycle (Mind tools,
The procedure of Lean Manufacturing has been the principle concerns and issues of numerous manufacturing companies all through the world. Numerous procedures paving the way to lean manufacturing have affected this significantly, for example, Interchangeable parts, Just in Time Production, the Ford Assembly line, and the Toyota Production Systems.
Before understanding the history of Lean Manufacturing I would like to explore its definition from several different perspectives and compare it to other philosophies, discussing its limitations and misconceptions.
Lean management is not restricted to the actions that take place in the manufacturing function of a company, rather it relates to activities range from product development, procurement and manufacturing over to distribution. Together these areas create the lean enterprise. The ultimate goal of implementing lean production in an organization is to have the customer in focus when improving productivity, enhancing quality, shortening lead times, reducing costs etc. These are factors representing the performance of a lean production system. The determinants of a lean production system are the actions taken, the principles implemented and the changes made to the organization to achieve the desired performance (Karlsson & Ahlstrom, 1996)
Lean manufacturing is an approach to manufacturing in which any resource spending that does not create value for the end customer is considered wasteful and should therefore be modified. Also this is considered “a theory that can help you to simplify and organize your working environment so that you can reduce waste, and keep your people, equipment, and workspace responsive to what’s needed right now.”( Lean Manufacturing) This explains how lean manufacturing can make the process of production more efficient. When it comes to lean manufacturing there are multiple principles that are apart of it. These Principles are the elimination of waste, continuous improvement, respect of humanity, levelized production, just-in-time production, and quality
Industries plays a vital role in Indian economy, it has emerged as a very important tool in providing relatively larger employment after agriculture. Global markets are continuously changing and demanding product of high quality with marginal cost. Such products can be produced using lean manufacturing, a philosophy that aimed to reduce wastes of manufacturing at all levels, so as to reduce product cost. Lean is about generating more values for buyers by eliminating activities that are regarded waste. Any activity or process that consume resources, time or adds cost without creating any value becomes the target for elimination. Lean Manufacturing is an efficient way to identify and eliminate waste through continual improvement. Lean is all about doing things in
Lean manufacturing is focused on minimising the costs of manufacturing. The focus is therefore on demand-based manufacturing, which aims to eliminate investment in inventory. Lean manufacturing involves with improving the effective use of utilities, facilities and materials. The process is driven by the mindset that the processes can be constantly improved to make manufacturing more cost efficient. Therefore, lean manufacturing emphasises improvement and the measurement of performance.
A project manager should also ensure customer satisfaction through surveys as well as by getting feed backs from the customers. The effective measures must be taken to improve the performance and hence to make the customers satisfied. A project manger should also have a focus on developing the team members through delegation without impacting the management by using different project management tools and resources.
In the globalized economy, Successful project managers are in much demand across many industries. Organizations strongly need experienced project managers to lead their staff to accomplish their business goals and deliver successful projects. In an increasingly complex environment, project managers need to turn into many roles and have all kinds of responsibilities at each level of management within an organization. Good project managers are not born. They need to be trained. They develop their skills through study, practise and experience. They become better project managers after they finish a successful project each time. They learn new techniques and apply them on their projects. They learn their lessons from failed projects and then improve to be better project managers in the future.
Project managers have to improve their skills every day to deal with the organizational change and especially the world’s Megatrends. However, it can be a challenge for a project manager to comprehend what skills they should be improved, what sections of project management knowledge that should be tried to perceive, and how to measure and enhance their performance.
The lean approach can substantially improve the process' efficiency. The objective is to create high quality products at a minimum cost in a short delivery time (Basu and Wright, 2008). This section explains briefly how Lean improves operational efficiency and enhances the competitiveness.
Over the course of my professional life, I have become increasingly involved in project management roles. Doing so has made me aware of the many varied challenges that can face projects and the project managers who are charged with bringing them through to completion. The success or failure of projects, in whatever economic, political or social field, rests not just on the quality of the project’s goals, but also on the abilities of those involved in the project – and above all those who are managing it – to bring it to successful completion. To do this, project managers need to be equipped with a very wide range of skills, many of which are unrelated to the type of project itself. So, for example, a project manager of an engineering project must not only have engineering
According to Diekmann et al. (2004), Lean construction is “the continuous process of eliminating waste, meeting or exceeding all customer requirements, focusing on the entire value stream, and pursuing perfection in the execution of a constructed project” [50]. Koskela and Howell (2002) stated that the general idea behind Lean construction is waste reduction, which is manifested in time, materials and effort to get the maximum value [51].
Project management is said to be completed within time when it completed within the “triple constraints”: cost, time and quality. And in a lot of causes, one them is sacrificed so as to meet the other two. Project managers prioritize which ones are the most important.
Companies seek to satisfy the customer by providing a good services or products. Lean manufacturing system is one of approach that supports companies to reduce waste, lead-time and improving quality.
The purpose of this case study is to investigate the methods used in implementing lean manufacturing by this successful company namely MJ SDN BHD where this company was awarded by Malaysia Japan Automotive Industries Cooperation (MAJAICO) on its achievement as a Toyota Production System (TPS) Model Company (Muslimen, Yusof and Abidin, 2011). This case study was chosen because it related to our assignment’s central issue in the process of implementing lean production. The issue that may face by the company in the implementation of lean production is that the process is time consuming and high in expenditure (Sandberg, 1995). Despite requiring specific tools and techniques, this long term project also need a clear direction of work progress, proper planning and controlling, and adapted to a company’s environment and needs. Most of the companies failed in implementing lean manufacturing are because they possess an ambiguous project direction, lack of planning and insufficient project sequencing (Bhasin and Burcher, 2006 as cited in Muslimen, et al., 2011).