Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Limitations of cost management in project management
Brief review of project cost management
Limitations of cost management in project management
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Limitations of cost management in project management
Time-phased project work is the basis for project cost control. Work package duration is used to develop the project network. Further, the time-phased budgets for work packages are timetabled to establish fiscal measures for each phase throughout the project. The time-phased budgets are to emulate the real cash needs of the budget, which will be used for project cost control. This information is useful to estimate cash outflows. The project manager's attention is on when the costs are to occur, when the budgeted cost is earned, and when the actual cost materializes. This information is made up to measure project schedule and cost variances (Gray & Larson, 2005). The following are typical types of costs found in a project: Direct Costs These costs are on account with a specific work package. Direct costs are attributed to efforts made by the project manager, project team, and folks executing the work package. These costs signify actual outflow and are compensated as the project evolves. Examples of direct costs are labor, equipment, materials, and other (Gray & Larson, 2005). Direct Overhead Costs Direct overhead rates represent which resources are being used in a project. Direct overhead costs relate to project deliverables. An example is the salary of the project manager or the rental of a project workspace. While overhead is not an immediate expense, it must be remunerated (Gray & Larson, 2005). General and Administrative (G&A) Overhead Costs These costs are not straightforwardly associated to a project. Examples include organization costs such as advertising or accounting. G&A costs are generally billed as a percent of total costs, or items such as labor, materials, or equipment. Using the sums of direct and overhead costs for work packages, it is possible to cumulate the costs for any deliverable for the entire project (Gray & Larson, 2005). Figure 1. Primary Data Sets Used by the Team to Determine the Budget Type Description Amount Cost of the Software Depreciation can be taken. G&A Cost 450,000 Training Costs Training for 12 users. Training time is 2 days per person. 6720 In-House Training Support Administrative Costs for 2 vendors in house 2800 Total Training Costs 9,520 Equipment and Material Costs Purchase of three servers and backup software 3750 4500 8250 Labor Costs Average salary = $91 Programmer 40 3640 Database Manager 65 5915 Project Analyst 150 13650 Operations Analyst 20 1820 Interface Manager 20 1820 Network Analyst 10 910 27,755 Total Cost 495,525 At the beginning of any project, a project manager along with the management team will create an estimate of time and costs, which will lead to the initial approved budget amount. As most project managers know, "Past experience is a good starting point for developing team and cost estimates.
The presentation of the material is in dollars only. Overhead is applied to products as a percent of direct labor dollar cost. Factory profit for each year is found by subtracting direct material, direct labor, and direct overhead costs from total sales. The overhead percentage is calculated at the same time budgeting and is applied as a single overhead pool throughout each model year. The consulting company used 435% of direct labor costs in 1987 for their study; the budgeted was actually 437% (OH/DL=107,954/24,682). A similar percentage applies in the following year (109890/25294=434.5%). However in the next two years, after the outsourcing of oil pans and mufflers was enacted, the allocation of overhead in...
Wilkerson uses a simple cost accounting system in which each unit is charged for direct labor and material costs in addition to overhead costs, which are allocated depending on the percentage of production-run direct labor usage. Under this system, the overhead percentage set by Wilkerson was 300%. This standardized system, however, did not reflect the specific complexities of each
Planning phase involves completion of the project scope plan, WBS, schedule of the project plan, cost and procurement of the project plan. According to the research study, the organizations need to spend a certain amount of time on planning and initiating phase. These plans address the knowledge areas. In this phase, we need to estimate the cost and obtain resources for the project. The team members need to reassess the plan at each and every phase of the project.
Regardless of how departmental budgets are established, best practices in capital budgeting clearly state that all side-effects of a project must be included in cash-flow projections (Schiff, 1988 *2). In fact, transportation costs have a significant impact on cash-flows and also on the value of the project.
Lewis, J. P. (2011). Project planning, scheduling, and control: A hands-on guide to bringing projects in on time and on budget (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
What is the total cost of the project? How much of the total cost are labor costs?
Spokane Industries has contracted Franklin Electronics for an 18 month product development contract. Franklin Electronics is new to using project management methodologies and have not been exposed to earned value management methodologies. Even though Franklin and Spokane have worked together in the past, they have mainly used fixed price contracts with little to no stipulations. For this project Spokane Industries is requiring Franklin Electronics to use formalized project management methodologies, earned value cost schedules, and schedules for reports and meetings. Since Franklin Electronics had had no experience with earned value management, the cost accounting group was trained in the methodology in order to bid for the project. Franklin Electronics won the contract because they had the lowest price. They developed a work breakdown structure that consisted of 45 work packages with 4 of the work packages being delivered in the first 4 months. They also developed a simple status report consisting of the work packages due, budgeted cost for work scheduled, budgeted cost for work performed, actual cost for work performed, cost variance and price variance. When they deliver the first status report, the Franklin Electronics project manager is called into an emergency meeting because Spokane Industries vice president is unhappy with the progress. In this paper, we will discuss Six Sigma process improvement for tracking time and cost, recommendations on how Franklin Electronics can use project management principles to meet their goal of improving efficiency and empowering management to make better and informed decisions through the use of Earned Value Management, how an effective Earned Value Management System contributes ...
Estimated Project Timeline (ROM): Phases Case 1 (Time in weeks) Case 2 (Time in weeks) Project initiation 1 1 Planning 2 2 Monitoring and Controlling 4 5 Execution 4 5 Project Closure 1 2 Total Cost 12 15 Projected Benefits: Case 1- • Creates new jobs- initially 120 and once the facility is at full operating capacity, 400 • Provides Organizational consolation • Additional growth
Variable costs: “Variable costs are costs that vary with the volume of activity”2 and they are: direct labor, Materials, Material spoilage & direct department expenses.
The costing system is a system that is used throughout businesses that offer a service. “A standard costing system uses standard costs and quantities of all three types of manufacturing costs: direct materials, direct labor, and factory overhead” (Blocher 2016 p. 97). Companies utilize the costing system to monitor the actual product usage compared to prior usage. Contractor use this system when bidding on jobs; once they collect specific instruction for the requested job they factor in the amount of material, labor, and other overhead costs then provide a quote for the assignment. “Strategic cost management is deliberate decision-making aimed at aligning the firm's cost structure” (Anderson & Sedatole 2003). Red Lobster and Kroger are examples
It is observed that finding out the technique that can be utilized to manage the cost lifecycle of the project. There is a high probability that cost management are conducted better result can be obtained.
My current environment is a non-profit organization where project completion to within budget and schedule is the main goal. The program budget and schedule are derived from the excepted proposal. The program managers are the one who will determine the scope of a project using data from past similar projects, if there is one, to make educated guess of how long a project takes to complete. The estimate time the project takes to complete and the dollar amount require to do this is put in the proposal. The proposal is used as a bid for the project. If project is awarded, the program manager will design a detail cost schedule to be monitored and controlled. The estimate cost and the actual cost is closely monitor on weekly basis. If there
If done right, I believe that all of the costs can be allocated to each of the three products through both direct and overhead costs. The only direct costs that are being included currently are labor and manufacturing costs. I broke up overhead into overhead based off direct labor and overhead based on units sold.
Project managers must take cost estimates seriously if they want to complete software projects within budget constraints. After developing a good resource requirements list, project managers and their software development teams must develop several estimates of the costs for these resources. There are several different tools and techniques available for accomplishing good cost estimation.
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.