Running head: AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 1

Aggregate Project Plan

Catherine Adhiambo Ondijo (1810841)

Farshad Shafaghati Charvadeh (1712287)

Joginder Singh (1812984)

Abhiraj Singh (1812215)

University Canada West

Professor: Belay Gala

MGMT 640: Project Management

3rd Nov 2019

AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 2

Product development

Product development is part of a project that involves all the activities from the actual

event and production. All the engineers, designers, marketing teams, and the R&D team must put

their skills together and come up with a specific idea and decide on the production. It is the part

of the project that ideas are generate also problems are solved (Tidd and Bodley 2002).

Research has shown that various factors can influence new product development success

according to (Rothwell 1977, Hamilton 1982, and Cooper and Kleinschmidt 1987). The factors

include product superiority, the availability of market knowledge, excellent assessment of risk,

top management support, project organization, technological quality, material, and skills

availability. For all these factors to be well place and to significantly contribute to the

development of products, organization needs to implement proper project planning. However, it

is still hard for project managers to know the proper tools to use in identifying the technology

used in ensuring proper project development. The reason being a different project will require

various tools and approaches depending on the novelty of the project. For instance, knowing the

difference between non-routine, routine projects and high novelty projects (Tidd and Bodley

2002).

Aggregate Project Planning

Research has it that "failing to plan is planning to fail." A project cannot be successful ie,

being able to meet its set objective without a clear and comprehensive detailed and approved

plan. A project objective needs to be in line with the goals of the company. The project plan

should ensure to have the following element authorization, clear mandate, and resources

availability (Tessin 2018),

AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 3

In our case, we support the fact that one project cannot determine the future success of a

company as the world is evolving fast, and many changes call for new development through the

project mix. Adopting the aggregate planning is the essential way of planning for projects mix as

it increases the scope of options for a full usage that management is considering too. In other

words, it is the systematic scheduling. APP is the process of creating ways to enhance the

development of goals and objectives that can, in turn, improve the productivity of a company

(Dejonckheere, Lambrecht et al. 2002).

Aggregate planning helps management in making tough decisions such as when and

which new projects should start, end, and cannibalized. Resources availability and the structure

of the company always help in giving the sequence and flow of direction. When running projects

simultaneously without hitches dramatically improves product development (Dejonckheere,

Lambrecht at el. 2003). As explained in the case of PreQuip, there are eight steps when

implementing the aggregate project planning:

Step 1. Defining the project type

There are five types of projects platform, derivative. R&D, breakthrough, and

partnerships. It is essential for management to know what kind of project they plan to use.

Project managers need to identify is the project is in for changing the existing product or

developing an entirely new product or juts, improving the cost or quality of the other products.

When PreQuip management adopted the aggregate plan, it selected the type and number of

projects to pursue and allocated the availability of resources to each of them depending on the

magnitude at which the project needed the support. The company was able to make a significant

improvement
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 4

Step 2. Identifying Existing Projects and Classify by Project

In this step, the novelty of projects determined. Mapping is the best tactic that

management can use in this step. Efficiently identify the project mix and knowing when the right

time to start the new project, when and which project to cannibalized, and finally ensuring the

projects aligned to attaining the same objective. The step significantly enables the projects to

focus on product development and determining the flow and sequence of projects is essential.

PreQuip was able to identify and reduce the number of its projects from 30 to 11. In this case,

the management knew the number of projects and got rid of projects that were not relevant.

Before that, the company had a late production development, whereas the project budget was

always increasing with no success in the project's completion. However, after implementing the

aggregate planning, the plans were more successful as aggregate planning addressed all the

issues (Wheelwright, Clark 1992).

Step 3: Estimation of Average Resources and Time Based On Past Experiences

According to Wheelwright and Clark (1992), one of the critical steps for creating an

Aggregate Project Plan includes the process of providing an estimation of average required

resources and time for every type of project as per past experiences. In this step, appropriate data

of all categories including, R&D, Breakthrough, Platform, and Derivative existing projects along

with proposed projects, should be collected separately. Verzuh (2003) believes that for ongoing

projects, the updated data should be used, and previous data would not be reliable. He explains

further that the data should be verified by getting employees and even customers involved in

creating valid data in terms of time and resources. All available means, such as project activities

plan, experts, and previous experiences, would be useful for making an appropriate estimation.

New projects need opportunity determination and assumption verification for proposed products;
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 5

we need to know how much time and cost we need to spend. Likewise, for future projects, we

need to pull out funding until the start of the project. Some projects following other projects, and

some do not. So, identifying projects that support future projects would be helpful for the

estimation process when we know whether they need to be outsourced or not (Verzuh, 2003).

By mapping all existing projects, PreQuip determined the total number of them for each

category then estimated the required engineering months based on the company’s past

experience. In their initial mapping, they discovered the amount of resources needed for the

development process, which correlated with circles’ size on the map. PreQuip performed the

third stage of the Aggregate Project Plan by estimating resources for all five project categories

and all four types of product, mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs, liquid chromatographs,

and data processing and handling products (Wheelwright & Clark, 1992).

Step 4: Identifying Existing Resources and Capacities

Another level of providing an Aggregate Project Plan is concentrated on evaluating

available time and resources in both internal and external areas (Wheelwright & Clark, 1992). In

this step, all types of resources should be assessed, such as available labour and materials. Then

the time availability needs to be evaluated, for instance, leaving time for holidays, illness,

personal emergencies, vacations. Verzuh (2003) elaborates that the contingency factor of

approximately 10 percent should be considered in available time estimation due to human beings

under some unpredictable circumstances have to leave their job to provide their personal needs.

He explains further that another significant role of timing in the project contains its impact on

project resources because the consumption of some resources never stops before ending the

project.
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 6

PreQuip followed the Aggregate Project Plan by capacity cushion strategy plan, which

enabled the company to avoid over-allocation of resources. PreQuip assessed its available

resources, then decided to assign just 75 full-time engineers out of 80 to eight development

projects in the commercial area. It means the company only allocated approximately 94 percent

of resources and left about a small portion of its capacity of roughly 6 percent uncommitted.

Therefore, this approach empowered the company with more flexibility to negative risks that

would appear in various forms of crisis; also the company has excess capacity to be benefited

from unexpected opportunities (Wheelwright & Clark, 1992).

Step 5. Desired Mix of Projects

As per the case study, it is mentioned that in case any single project type is not helping in

getting desired results regarding the project. Therefore, a mixture of various projects must be

taken into consideration to achieve the goal of a particular project. This case study explains the

aggregate project plan used by a company named PreQuip in the development and alteration of

its product. Every project type has some pros and cons. To overcome all the cons, most

organizations try to execute an aggregate project plan, which is the mixture of all positive sides

of different types of plans.

Generally, a large number of projects are always in process in most of the organization.

In this case study also, PreQuip was handling a large number of projects at the same time, which

were more than the capacity of the PreQuip. There was a lack of resources; engineers were

devoting their valuable time on current needs instead of important projects and goals

(Wheelwright & Clark, 2003).To overcome all these drawbacks, PreQuip used the aggregate

project plan to operate the organization properly (Wheelwright & Clark, 2003). In this case,

management made a plan and categorized the projects according to their importance to the
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 7

organization. This sequencing of the projects according to their relevance to the organization

helped the management in having full control over the projects as well budget assigned to each

project.

When an aggregate project plan is created regarding preferences and budget of different

projects. The mapping of the project is the next step. This includes dividing the projects into five

different categories. These are derivative, breakthrough, platform, research & development and

alliances & partnerships. Firstly, PreQuip categorized all their projects into five types of projects.

It was not an easy task for PreQuip. However, the aggregate project plan helped the organization

in categorizing all the projects into five categories. Also, 20% of the projects were classified as

platforms (Wheelwright & Clark, 2003). Projects that need big efforts, but having very little

benefit to the progress on the organization needs to be given less importance.

Overall, it can be said that PreQuip uses agile methodology in its operations, as this

approach is more flexible and helps the team members to find out the best combinations of

various alternatives available. The agile approach also overcomes the drawbacks of the

traditional approach (Spundak, 2014).

Step 6 Number of Projects that Existing Resources can Support

With current resources, PreQuip can easily create a new derivate by creating a single

production line for both assembling and testing. Also, they have the option to create two types of

products, on for high-end customers and one for the average income people by making a few

changes in the specifications in their product.To make effective and efficient use of the number

of engineers available in the organization. PreQuip divided its engineers into three categories

R&D projects, existing products, and customers. The main reason behind this is to have a

sufficient number of engineers for a different type of needs in an organization. PreQuip

AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 8

distributed the engineers according to the project mix. 50% to platform projects, 20% to

derivative projects and 10% to breakthrough projects.

7th step - Which Specific Projects to Pursue

This is a very crucial step and involves finalizing the projects that the company will be

trying to complete from the different categories of projects that they categorized in the given

time frame. It is advised for the company to keep a margin of 10 to 15 percent of their total

resources for some unexpected new opportunities or if they wrongly estimated the resources for a

current project. Extra resources can also come handy in case of a crisis situation in some ongoing

process. The projects can then be ranked in different categories of the desired project mix. Few

projects can be included as a speculated project in every category that will allow the company to

have flexibility in future and have enough resources to complete that project if the opportunity

comes. Broadly, the aim is to focus on lesser number of projects and have sufficient funds to

complete all of those (Verzuh, 2003).

Using the aggregate project plan, PreQuip decided to get rid of more than 70% of its

projects, which even included some huge developmental mental projects taken by the senior

management. During the mid 1990, the company had only 11 projects running through which

included three projects each of platform, derivative and R&D. The rest were partnership and

breakthrough. The company thrived by completing these limited number of projects, as they

were all successful. The company’s productivity increased over the years. PreQuip made sure to

avoid over-allocation of the resources to any project and always kept a margin of cushion for

emergencies. For example, out of 80 engineers, only 75 engineers were directly assigned to a
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 9

particular project. Whereas, the rest were kept uncommitted. They started emphasizing more on

the platform projects as they matured over the years (Wheelwright & Clark, 2003).

Type of project Number of projects

Platform Project 3
Breakthrough Project 1
Derivative Project 3
Partnership Project 1
Basic R&D Project 3
Total 11

8th Step- Work To Improve Development Capabilities

Documenting the reasons for the delay or the defunding of the project can help avoid

similar issues in the future. Other details that should be documented are the reasons for

cancellations or rejection of the projects. No process is perfect, hence, it is important for the

company to always be flexible and be prepared to improve and make changes continuously.

They need to be fully aware of the competitive environment and should work diligently to work

in the direction that supports the ideology of the company and aligns with its principles and

goals. Constant analysis of the capabilities is required in order to stay at par with the competitors.

The company can focus on people’s development skills by helping them get the proper

experience required and eventually helping them become a project leader. They can start off by

leading a derivative project initially as these sort of projects are easier to handle. Gradually, they

can be given the responsibility to lead a larger project of the same category before eventually

appointing them to a platform project. It is also beneficial for the company to make sure that the

participants get full knowledge of both advanced research and latest commercial advancements.

This helps the participants’ development and keeps their knowledge up to date (Verzuh, 2003).  
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 10

Along with improving the skills of the participants, the last step of the aggregate plan can

also be utilised to figure out the gaps in capabilities. This step also helps in improving the

processes and guides how to utilise the latest techniques in the completion of various projects. It

helps the company to identify which department requires changes and how making improvement

in those areas will benefit them. For instance, the aggregate project plan helped PreQuip to find

out the areas where they were not performing efficiently. They figured out that they required an

expertise in software development in the case of mass spectrometer. Also, as they laid emphasis

on effective costs and reliability, they needed improvement in the field of industrial design

techniques. They took various steps to overcome these challenges (Wheelwright & Clark, 2003).

The most prominent one was that they started using Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software

in their designing department. Using the aggregate project plan requires active participation from

the senior management and involves taking some difficult decisions in the tricky situations. But

this helps to develop strong leaders and make them mentally solid. Without their constant

involvement, it is impossible to effectively imply the aggregate plan. Meanwhile, making all the

decisions and adapting to the new plan give the company a direction and helps them in laying a

strong foundation for a successful future (Wheelwright & Clark, 2003).

Benefits of Aggregate Project Plan to PreQuip

Successful implementation of the aggregate project plan helped PreQuip recover from the

turmoil situation and turn around their failure into a highly successful one. They started defining

their projects, choosing them wisely and worked together as a unit to take the company in the

right direction. The senior management took responsibility and planned the future projects in a

proper sequence. Resources were now being allocated appropriately and they had proper plans

for unexpected issues or unexpected new opportunities.

AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 11

Reference
AGGREGATE PROJECT PLAN 12

Dejonckheere J, Lambrecht M. Disney S. M (2003). The Dynamics of Aggregate Planning.

Production planning and control. DOI:10.1080/ /09537280310001321967.

Tessin P.C (2018). CEIT Framework at Work, Part 3; Creating a Project Plan. https://eds-a-

ebscohost-com.ezproxy.myucwest.ca/eds/detail

Tidd, J., and Bodley, K. (2001). The Influence of project Novelty on the New Product

development Process

Verzuh, E. (Ed.). (2003). The portable MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.

Spundak, M. (2014). Mixed agile/traditional project management methodology–reality or

illusion? Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, 939-948.

Wheelwright, S. C., & Clark, K. B. (1992). Revolutionizing product development: quantum leaps

in speed, efficiency, and quality. Simon and Schuster.

Wheelwright, S. C., & Clark, K. B. (1992). Creating project plans to focus product development

(pp. 70-82). Harvard Business School Pub.