Capital Industries In the summer of 2006, Capital Industries undertook a materia

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Capital Industries In the summer of 2006, Capital Industries undertook a material development program to see if a hard plastic bumper could be developed for medium-size cars. By January 2007, Project Bumper (as it was called by management) had developed a material that endured all preliminary laboratory testing One more step was required before full-scale laboratory testing: a three- dimensional stress analysis on bumper impact collisions. The decision to perform the stress analysis was the result of a concern on the part of the technical community that the bumper might not perform correctly under certain conditions. The cost of the analysis would require corporate funding over and above the original estimates. Since the current costs were identical to what was budgeted, the additional funding was a necessity Frank Allen, the project engineer in the Bumper Project Office, was assigned control of the stress analysis. Frank met with the functional manager of the engineering analysis section to discuss the assignment of personnel to the task. Functional manager: "I'm going to assign Paul Troy to this project. He's a new man with a Ph.D. in structural analysis. I'm sure he'll do well. Frank Allen: "This is a priority project. We need seasoned veterans, not new people, regardless of whether or not they have Ph.D.'s. Why not use some other project as a testing ground for your new employee?" Functional manager: "You project people must accept part of the responsibility for on-the-job training. I might agree with you if we were talking about blue- collar workers on an assembly line. But this is a college graduate, coming to us with a good technical background." Frank Allen: "He may have a good background, but he has no experience. He needs supervision. This is a one-man task. The responsibility will be yours if h

Explanation / Answer

1. The best person qualified to make functional estimates for a project is the one who has the qualification to back his estimates, along with an experience in that project area, or at least a similar project domain. For instance, in this case, Paul Troy had the qualifications to back his knowledge about the testing, but had no actual experience in conducted a three-dimensional stress analysis, hence, his estimates were not realistic.

2. This task can be delegated, but as Farnk Allen insisted, to a seasoned veteran who had experience in handling such projects, as this project was a one-man job and a high priority project.

3. The estimation of his task should not have been delegated, as the project was high priority. The functional manager should have gotten involved himself for making the estimates, and for the on-job training of Paul Troy, he could have let him conduct other tasks in the project that too under his (functional manager) supervision, as this was Paul Troy’s first project practically handled regarding a three dimensional stress testing.

4. It was not wise to delegate the responsibility of the estimate to Paul Troy, provided the lack of experience he had in the field. If he had guidance and served the project assisting the functional manager, Paul Troy would have been in a better place to use his educational qualifications for the project.

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