Search results

At the beginning of 2013, Boing's revolutionary 787 airliner suffered a host of problems and then the fleet was grounded because of a fires caused when lithium‐ion batteries overheated. This paper aims to look at the way the company managed the risks of innovation and how outsourcing added to this risk.

According to his research, which includes news reports and published internal reports, the author believes that Boeing problems with the 787 Dreamliner that led to its grounding can be blamed on how it went about outsourcing, both in the USA and beyond.

The paper reveals that the 787 involved not merely the outsourcing of a known technology. It involved major technological innovations unproven in any airplane.

Some degree of offshoring is an inevitable aspect of manufacturing a complex product like an airplane, but the cultural and language differences and the physical distances involved in a lengthy supply chain create additional risks. Mitigating them requires substantial and continuing communications with the suppliers and on‐site involvement, thereby generating additional cost.

The author offers a set of recommendations for company executives planning to offshore projects that involve major technological innovations.

Project management skills are important for today’s engineers, as they get involved in various project-based employment roles. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a learning model to provide project management knowledge through scaffolding and project-based learning (PjBL) methods in the project engineering course.

This paper discusses a generic learning model that includes how scaffolding and project-based methods are integrated to provide project management skills to the students. The paper uses the survey method to collect and analyze data on the applicability of the model.

Statistical analysis of the collected data shows that the respondents positively perceive the value of the learning model to gain project management knowledge and skills. The response shows that the model is useful not only to the current students but also the graduates who use project management skills in their employment.

The learning model can be used by the instructors to provide project management skills to undergraduate and graduate students from all education disciplines.

This paper focuses on the development of a unique learning model, and artifacts used by the students and the instructors for interactive learning and gaining skills on project management.

This research aims to evaluate the status of project management best practices in the road infrastructure sector of Ghana through the inquiry of project managers’ competency.

Based on a thorough literature review on competency and project management best practices, a criterion for measuring best practices based on the competencies was identified. Using closed-ended questionnaires as a survey instrument, data was collected and analyzed using a one-sample t-test, Kendall’s concordance coefficient and simple regression.

The key finding reveals that in achieving project management best practices for the Ghanaian road infrastructure projects, project managers should straighten and strengthen their capability in terms of skills, personal characteristics and knowledge as ranked. An appropriate blend of these characteristics would be a necessary requirement for project managers. Through this, project managers and project-based road infrastructure organizations will be able to win the confidence of their stakeholders and attain improvements in cost-effectiveness, quality and time management.

This study provides project managers in the road infrastructure sector with relevant information on which criteria and variables are critical and are frequently required to manage such projects. This will be helpful for training programs and professional development of project managers in the road infrastructure sector.

The study provides a new direction and focuses for project managers in the road infrastructure industry toward best project management practices in developing countries. It also complements existing studies in this area which deepen the understanding of the subject area.

Due to the frenetic and dynamic working conditions ascribed to architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) project organizations, enormous research has addressed the poor mental health propensity of project management practitioners (PMPs). However, research has not considered the distant factors related to organizational design causing poor mental health. Therefore, this study addresses the problem by integrating institutional theory, agency theory and resource-based theory (RBT) to explore the relationship between organizational design elements: project governance, knowledge management, integrated project delivery, project management skills and mental health management indicators. Examples of mental health management indicators include social relationships, work-life balance and project leadership.

Purposive sampling method was adopted to collect survey data from 90 PMPs in 60 AEC firms in Australia. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was utilized to test the relationship between the variables.

The research found that project governance, knowledge management and integrated project delivery are positively correlated to mental health management indicators. However, the research finding suggests that project management skills have a negative impact on mental health management indicators.

The findings offer guidelines to AEC firms on achieving positive mental health management outcomes through concentration on project governance, knowledge management and integrated project delivery. It further calls for a reconsideration of existing project management skills causing poor mental health management outcomes.

Civil engineering students at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology generally find the final year research project very daunting. In most cases it is the first time that they are not “learning” passively by sitting in lectures, receiving notes and worked out examples, memorising the material and then writing an examination to demonstrate their “competency”. Suddenly learning comes by doing, and they are faced with the challenge of executing a significant research project. For students who do not have good management skills, this becomes a very difficult task. To address this problem, staff have, over the past decade, integrated project management with the research project to the extent that it has now become one subject with two final year credits. This means that students learn how to use project management skills to manage the research project, which runs over one year. Project management skills integrated with a rigid structure, complemented by lecturer support in a web‐based e‐learning environment, has been developed to assist students in completing the research project. This has proved to be very successful and students have commented that without the newly acquired project management skills, they would not have been able to complete the projects on time. The results indicate that the integration of project management skills can relieve the role reversal entrapment problem. However, interventions to prepare the students more adequately must be considered over the first three years of study. The paper presents the historical background to the problem, an overview of how the revised methodology is being implemented, and it indicates how e‐learning is used to manage the course.

To determine the effects of project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity, and existing knowledge on team reflexivity and performance of cross‐functional new product development (NPD) team. The moderating roles of team cohesiveness and knowledge practice are also explored.

This study used online questionnaire surveys by inviting 500 R&D team members of NPD from three Science Parks in Taiwan. The survey questionnaires were sent to the representative of R&D team members.

The results indicate that members' project management skills, entrepreneurial proclivity, and existing knowledge have significant impact on team reflexivity and product innovativeness of the NPD project, which then influence NPD performance. Furthermore, NPD team exercising higher levels of team cohesiveness and higher knowledge practice tend to moderate the influence of team reflexivity and product innovativeness on NPD performance.

The use of longitudinal research is suggested to confirm the results of this study. Moreover, other research settings, either different industry or other countries, could increase the generalizability of the findings.

The study has high implications for managers of NPD to recruit qualified team members who have adequate knowledge and strong entrepreneurial proclivity. Moreover, managers should be aware of the moderating role of team cohesiveness and knowledge practices.

The paper determines the antecedents and consequences of team reflexivity and innovativeness among NPD team members. The moderating role of team cohesiveness and knowledge practices are discussed.

Major maintenance projects are often regarded as maintenance activities regardless of the projects' complexity and scale. Consequently, very scarce research attention has hitherto been paid to the critical skills required when undertaking these projects. More specifically, the body of relevant knowledge is deprived of a study focusing on maintenance projects within the energy sector. In view of this shortcoming, this research aims to examine the critical project management (PM) skills required to deliver major maintenance projects within the energy sector.

Based on a quantitative research strategy, this study addressed the knowledge gap through a cross-sectional survey of professionals involved in the delivery of major maintenance projects in the United Kingdom's (UK) energy sector. Data obtained were analyzed via descriptive (e.g. frequencies, mean and standard deviation [SD]) and inferential statistical analyses (One sample t-test and exploratory factor analysis (EFA)).

Out of the 45 PM skills identified in the literature and examined by the respondents, the results obtained from the One sample t-test (based on p (1-tailed) = 0.05) showed that 37 were considered to be at least “important,” accounting for 80.4% of all the skills identified. EFA revealed a clustering of the PM skills items into seven components: “skills related to work scheduling and coordination”; “communication, risk, safety and stakeholder management skills”; “quality assurance skills”; “people management skills”; “skills related to forecasting scope and duration of outage”; “implementation of processes and time management skills” and “technical/engineering skills and experience pertaining to the outage and local site knowledge.”

This study has identified and contributed to the limited state-of-the-art skills project managers must possess to manage major maintenance projects in the energy sector successfully. The findings would be useful to organizations within the energy sector in ensuring that the organizations have suitable personnel in place to deliver major maintenance projects on the organizations' assets.

The complexity of projects has become a serious issue and obstacle in their successful completion. In order to overcome these complexities, it has become imperative to identify the relevant management competencies of project managers. The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of cost, time and scope in engineering infrastructure projects due to their complexities through management competencies.

In the first phase of the study, 32 experts were interviewed through semi-structured pre-tested questionnaire. In this phase, essential elements of complexities were identified initially. This was followed by finding required dimensions of competencies to counter these complexities and to acquire improved performance. In the final stage, required levels of competencies for specific elements of complexity were identified. In the second phase, 85 “project managers” were also approached to get feedback about their recently completed public sector engineering infrastructure projects in Pakistan.

The study identified additional dimensions, i.e. honesty, enthusiasm and dedication, in the case of competencies and adverse law and order situation, political instability, land issues, energy crisis and weak authorization of project managers in the case of complexities. Leadership, management skill, communication skill, effectiveness and result orientation were identified as top quality traits required. The study concluded that there is a significant impact of management competencies and complexities on project performance.

The study contributes to a better understanding of how to improve performance in complex engineering infrastructure projects through adopting management competencies. It also empirically illustrates the relations among project management competencies, complexities and project performance. Although the research is grounded on public sector infrastructure projects, its findings may also be helpful for practices in project management of other sectors.

Project management has become the hip new trend in librarianship, appearing more and more in job listings, position descriptions, and professional development offerings. How did project management become the latest buzzword, and what does it have to offer our profession?

The answers to these can be explored through a look at the evolution of project management from the concept of Scientific Management to the certifiable skill set it is today, and how that evolution connects with librarianship’s own changes over time. This examination is done through a literature and historical analysis.

A deeper look at the basic concepts behind project management in light of this historical and practical connection with librarianship demonstrates how project management not only can be a useful skill for library workers to embrace today, but will also illuminate how our service-oriented structure may not mesh well with a concept rooted in business and computing. However, libraries that take a systems approach to implementing project management may see that they are better able to find success.

This study is largely theoretical and based on literature and historical analysis rather than practical implementation and testing. However, it does offer us a different way of looking at a trendy concept, one which helps ground the concept in theory and practice in a way that is seldom done. It also provides examples of tools to help libraries implement project management with a systems approach, which has not been addressed much in library literature.