Semester 2, 2009/10

HEATH ROBINSON ‘S WEB HOSTING COMPANY

Project Plan - Heath Robinson’s

Network Installation
Submission Date
Assignment (60%)

Sefff

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Table of Contents
Project Summary: Introduction..................................................................................3
My Role: As Project Manager......................................................................................3
The Objective: Scope of Work.....................................................................................4
Tasks to be completed...............................................................................................5
Assumptions:...........................................................................................................5
Construction / Refurbishing - Construction Manager’s Activity................................6
Work Breakdown Structure..................................................................................6
Activity List..........................................................................................................6
Activity List with Dependency..............................................................................7
Planning the Network and Telecomm access Point (Structured Cabling)................8
Work Breakdown structure...................................................................................8
Activity list...........................................................................................................9
Activity List with Dependency..............................................................................9
Equipment/Material Requirement – Cost Estimate................................................10
The Cost of materials required for structured cabling is as follows.......................11
Network Design.....................................................................................................11
Resource – Roles and Responsibility & Cost Estimate...........................................12
The Team consists of 10 members, the roles and the associated cost is as follows
..............................................................................................................................12
Total Project Costing.............................................................................................14
The Project cost is divided into..............................................................................14
The Total Cost for the Project is as in the table below:.........................................15
Project Plan and Task Execution timelines............................................................16
ROI , Payback Period & Breakeven Point...............................................................18

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Project Summary: Introduction
Heath Robinson Web Hosting Company has acquired second floor
in a building, in East Anglia Industrial Estate. There are 8 rooms
all together on the floor, each of which is large enough to
accommodate 5 web hosting servers, 1 computer for server
maintenance and 1 for development work.

The Purpose of the Project is to design and Implement the

Network Infrastructure for the new premises. The Project Planning
needs to be planned extensively to cover the following important
aspects:

• Cost Estimation
• Resourcing - Roles & Responsibility
• Budget
• Milestones and Timelines
• Technology & Process Adoption

My Role: As Project Manager

The role played here will of a Project Manager, managing the
overall project activity, responsible for the project deliverables,
stick to time lines and lead a team of 10 people.

The Roles and Responsibility of the 10 individuals is as follow

• 1 computer hardware specialist responsible for hardware-

related task

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 • 1 financial advisor responsible for control financial resources
available to the project

• 1 network designer responsible for designing the network for

the company

• 2 software developers for developing software required by

the new installation

• 2 office assistants, one in charge of purchasing computers

and other hardware equipment and the other dealing with
paperwork in the office and produce project-related
documents

• 1 construction manager responsible for building and

refurbishment work

• 1 software testing engineer

• 1 hardware testing engineer.

The Objective: Scope of Work

The objectives of this project limits to the following scope of Work
• Equipment Requirement analysis - Equipment installations,
network cables and software needed for running the network
system
• Manage Sub-contacted project of Constructing / refurbishing
Second floor where equipments will be installed
• Designing the network based on the business requirements

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 • Investigate and purchase appropriate hardware and other
equipment
• Developing the software required for the network system
• Installing the network and computers in the new building
• Testing hardware and software

Tasks to be completed
• Define Work Break down structure (WBS)
• Estimate Activity Resources
• Estimate Activity Duration
• Estimate Cost
• Calculate Net Profit, ROI and RTR
• Risk Assessment

Assumptions:
• 30 Employees - 5 users in each room
• Cash Inflow and Cash Outflow Values are assumed Year on
Year
• Resource availability, sufficiency and priority of assignment
are assumed to readily available.

Define Work Break down structure (WBS)

The work Break down structure (WBS) is one of most important

aspect of a project. It becomes the hub of information for the
project, and arguably the most important component of project
plan. The WBS should include procurement decisions, cost, quality

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attributes, Risk and serves as the primary tool for verifying and
controlling the Project

The work break down structure for the project is as follow

Heat
Construction / Refurbishing - Construction

Equipment/ Mate
Manager’s Activity
Construction planning is a fundamental and challenging activity in

Requirement – Cost E
the management and execution. It involves the choice of
technology, the definition of work and the estimation of required
resources and duration of individual task.

Hardware cost
The Primary focus here will be on cost control, even though
control on the schedules defined would have realistic. The WBS
and activity lists for the construction/Refurbishing activity is as

Software cost (License)

follows. The type of activities comprise Production Activities and
Procurement activities

The Construction Manager would be responsible for planning the

Installations
construction activity and over look all the activities.

Work Breakdown Structure

• Design Floor plan (space plan)
• Masonry and Plumbing

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 • Provide Water, Electrical, Pressure air and gas services
• Repair and Paint floor, Walls and Ceiling

Activity List
○ Strip Room
○ Repair Wall and Ceilings
○ Repair Floor
○ Lay Vinyl Floor
○ Rough –in Plumbing & Electricals &Finish Plumbing &
Electrical
○ Install Cabinets
○ Install Wall Cabinets
○ Paint Cabinet
○ Paint Walls & Ceilings

Activity List with Dependency

Activity List with Dependency
Activi Depends
ty Activity Description on
1 Strip Room -
2 Repair Walls & Ceilings 1,5
3 Repair Floor 1,5
4 Lay Vinyl Floor 3,12,13
Rough-in Plumbing &
5 Electrical 1
Finish Plumbing & 2,3,5,9,10
6 Electrical ,14
7 Install 1/3 Base Cabinets 2,3,12
8 Install Wall Cabinets 2,3,7,12
9 Paint Cabinets 6,7,8,13

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 2,3,6,7,8,
10 Paint Walls and Ceilings 13
Obtain Vinyl Floor
11 Coverings -
12 Obtain Cabinets -
Painter, Plumber &
13 Electrician Availability -
14 Install 2/3 Base Cabinet -
Construction – Cost Estimate

Considering industry standard pricing and costing list the cost

estimate for the construction activity is as follows

Con
Planning the Network and Telecomm access Point
(Structured Cabling)
Modern Computer LAN (Local area Network) wiring has the
concept of structured cabling. Structured cabling is the design

Construction Ma
and management of Physical layer in OSI Model. With today’s high
speed networks, the networking system must be broken up into
shorter chunks with the cable length short enough to support the
high data rate.

Per day Cost (8 H 8

The New floor requires Voice, Data and Video wiring and
electronic facilities to support newest form of
telecommunications. The Switch room, which houses the Servers,
Networking equipments (Switches, Routers, and Firewalls)
connects to the each terminal (Desktop) via Horizontal Cabling.
The option for Vertical Cabling can be enabled in future for
connecting multiple switch rooms

Work Breakdown structure

• Design Network and Telephone point -Floor Plan
• Horizontal cabling – Desktop to Patch panel wiring
• Switch room cabling
• Rack Mounting and Server wiring
• Pathway planning – cable trays, conduits and hangers to
support cable from IDF

Activity list
• Running cable from the Network/Telecom Point to wiring
closet
• Cable connector punching
• Wall jack mounting
• Cabling pulling
• Building Entrance cabling – Connectivity to external
network(ISP)
• Horizontal cabling – Individual desktop connection to
Switch(Hub)
• Work Area cabling – for Printers, scanner and other devices
• Switch room cabling
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 • Obtain Cat5e cables – For Data transmission
• Obtain Cat5 Cables – For Voice transmission

Activity List with Dependency

Activity list with Dependency
Activ Depends
ity Activity Description on
Running cable from the Network/Telecom
1 Point to wiring closet 9,10
2 Cable connector punching 11,1,
3 Wall jack mounting 9,10,12
4 Cabling pulling 1,9,10
Building Entrance cabling – Connectivity to
5 external network(ISP) 9,10,11
Horizontal cabling – Individual desktop 1,4,9,10,
6 connection to Switch(Hub) 11
Work Area cabling – for Printers, scanner and 1,4,9,10,
7 other devices 11
8 Switch room cabling 9,10,11
9 Obtain Cat5e cables – For Data transmission -
10 Obtain Cat5 Cables – For Voice transmission -
11 Obtain Cable connectors - RJ45 7 RJ11 -
12 Obtain Face Plates -

Equipment/Material Requirement – Cost Estimate

The List of Network & Server Equipment/Materials required to
execute the project is as follow. The parametric cost estimation
technique (linear scalable estimation)

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 Network
Dell PowerEdge 2900

The Cost of materials required for structured cabling is as follows

Patch Chords
Patch Panels - 24 Ports
Network Design
The Network has been designed based on Industry best practices.
The aim is to design and build the best network for Heath

RJ45 connectors
T72-01675
Robinson’s, with highest degree of functionality at the lowest
reasonable cost. The network design is developed with an

RJ11 connectors
understanding that real-time applications like voice and video
travel across the network.

Face plates 11
The Network is designed using industry standard Star topology.
The configuration covered in the guide include layer1 and layer2
design. The idea is to reduce the possible number of problems
that can arise and increase the chances that each IT network
engineer is sufficiently trained to deal the most potential problem.
The devices have the capability to scale up twice the current
capacity

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Resource – Roles and Responsibility & Cost
Estimate
The Team consists of 10 members, the roles and the associated
cost is as follows

Computer Hardware specialist:

The Hardware engineer would be responsible for all hardware
installation , routine maintenance and attend and close any kind of
service request from the employees
• Hardware specification & Installation
• Daily Maintenance of the Setup
• Handle Service Request from End Users

Network Engineer:
The Network Engineer’s primary role would be designing the Network,
scalable for the company present and future expansion. The smooth
running of running of the Network, on daily basis is also the primary
focus of this resource. The Primary role of the network engineer
would be as follows:
• Manage Desktop Incidents
• Configuration of the PCs and connections to a network
• Setup and connection of a printer
• Setup of file and print sharing
• Telephone access to all cabin

Software Developers:

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The 2 Software Developer’s would be responsible for design and
development of the software required by the company. The software
would be tailor designed based on very specific needs of the
company. The developers would be using the standard coding
languages like JAVA & .Net Frame work to develop the software.

Office Assistant:
The 2 Office assistant were appointed for essentially do whatever
office tasks are needed so that the professional doesn’t have to. One
office assistant will purchase hardware needed to the office and other
will do paper works

Testing Engineers:
One hardware testing engineer and software testing engineer were
appointed their responsibilities is to setup of test processes including
hardware and software deployment, provide technical support and
training when required advanced testing, performing complex
diagnostic tests on faulty computer. Software testing technician
execute test plans to evaluate the performance of software
applications and information and telecommunication systems.

The Total Resource cost per month is as follows

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Total Project Costing

Computer Hardware
The Project cost is divided into
• Capital Expenditure
• Operational Expenditure

Network Engineer
Capital Expenditure

The Capital expenditure (Capex) is the cost incurred for

procurement of the required Hardware and Equipments and the

Software developers
Materials used for the construction purpose. The Capex is one
time cost and is not a recurring.

The following table gives the Capital expenditure

Office Assistant
Capital Expenditu
Testing Engineers
Network & Server
Operational Expenditure

Financial Advisor
The Operational Expenditure (Opex) is the cost incurred to run the
operations and is the Monthly/Yearly recurring cost. Opex is

Construction - Ma 15
further classified as Direct and Indirect cost. The following table
provides the Estimated Operational cost for next 5 years

Opertional Cost (Ope

Direct Cost
Server Maintenance
The Total Cost for the Project is as in the table below:

Hardware MaintenanceCos
Antivirus Annual Subsc
Server and
Indirect Cost
Compu
Project Plan and Task Execution timelines
The Project Planning and the associated tasks with time lines are

Land Lease (per y

as follows

Rent
The Project is subdivided into

• Construction

Staff Salary (taking 30%

• Structured Cabling

Construction Cost 16
 • Network Installation
• Server Configuration
• Software Development
• Software Testing
• Hardware Testing
• Desktop Configuration

The time lines proposed is 20 working day ( 4 Weeks). The Tasks

and the associated time lines are defined in the project plan.

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 ROI , Payback Period & Breakeven Point
As per the development and production cost we have calculated
the benefit of this year. The following table will show you the total
benefits of this year

Total Cost Vs Total Benefit

Total Cost incurred

NPV (Net Present Value) and ROI (Return on Investment):
£
Total Opex Cost £
The difference between the present value of cash inflows and the
present value of cash outflows. NPV is used in capital budgeting to
analyse the profitability of an investment or project. Here the NPV

Total Benefit £
and ROI are calculated. The following tables show you the NPV and
ROI value.

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Net profit / total investment × 100 = Return on Investment
Total Benefit – Total Cost
ROI = ------------------------------------
Total Cost

= £1,610,400 - £8, 80,591

--------------------------------
£8, 80,591

= 0.828%

Break Even Point for the First year

First year Sales - £2, 41,535

First year Cost (Direct + indirect) - £68,462

Yearly Net Cash Flow – Cumulative Net Cash Flow

= --------------------------------------------------------------------
Yearly Net Cash Flow

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 £231,537 - £68462
= ---------------------------
£231,537

= 1.32 BEP (1 and half year)

Return on Investment (ROI) analysis is one of several approaches

to evaluating and comparing investments. ROI compares
investment returns and costs by constructing a ratio, or
percentage. In most ROI methods, an ROI ratio greater than 0.00
(or a percentage greater than 0%) means the investment returns
more than its cost.

ROI and other financial metrics that take an investment view of

an action or investment compare investment returns to
investment costs. However each of the major investment metrics
(ROI, internal rate of return IRR, net present value NPV, and
payback period), approaches the comparison differently, and each
carries a different message.

Here the case flow over a period of 5 years is assumed for ROI
calculation. The Net Cash flow data assumed is as follows

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The table below shows the figures for the investment, including
cumulative cash flow and ROI for the investment at the end of
each year.

ROI: The ROI figures Year on Year is as shown in the above table

Future Performance: The cumulative curves above only cover 5

years, but if the investments inflows and outflows are expected to
continue beyond 5 years.

Payback Period: The cumulative cash flow curves above show

roughly the point in time when the cumulative cash flow "breaks
even," that is, when cumulative incoming returns exactly balance
cumulative outflows. This point in time (point on the horizontal
axis) is Payback period .The payback period is 1.5 years

RISK ASSESSMENT

The initial Risk Assessment identify those risks which can be

identified before starting the project are listed in the below page.
The risk assessment will be continuously monitored and updated
throughout the life of the project

INITIAL PROJECT RISK ASSESSMENT

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 RISK

Project scope

Estimated project scheduled

Team size at peak

Regardless of how close you come to reality, a committee will be
much happier if your project comes in below budget than over it,
however towards the end of the project due to high risk and
inexperience make the project become unlikely to meet both the
deadline and the budget. So, the committee decided to extent the

Knowledge level of staff

project for eight weeks to finish this project.

A Study in the Project Failure:

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 Due to over budget with no clear end in site the project got
unsuccessful. To get back on track, as a project manager I have
to take further steps to overcome this problem. The first thing I
need to do is to work out how far off-track and exactly how many
days are behind the schedule and what is the percentage of
project timeline and also I need to calculate the percentage of
overall budget, by changing some task allocations and try to
reassign people to tasks and check out the task dependencies is a
better way to go on the track. And to assign the best people to
the critical tasks and try to get those done earlier.

Conclusion:

The Project make or break decision is with the project

manager. Its the responsibility of the PM to ensure that all the
Project related activities are in line to the timeline and any delay
in the deliverables are adjusted by adding extra resources or
increasing the time line. Every project can only be achieved
satisfactorily through a comfortable working relationship between
very many people and with many different personal or collective
objectives. Projects are within organizations to support
temporary endeavours that create unique products or services.
The Management committee will be ultimately responsible for
taking any kind of decision on the make or break of the project in
addition to the details provided by the project manager.

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