Option #1- I have attached Milestones 1 and 2 for reference Building on your work in Module 1 and 2 Portfolio Project Milestones and with a specific focus on your service project at the company you se
Running head: MILESTONE 0
Portfolio Milestone: Courier Service Proposal
Fallon Urquhart
Course Number (PJM580) – Capstone- Project Management
Colorado State University – Global Campus
Dr. Douglass Smith
October 4, 2020
Courier Service Proposal
Project management is a challenging task and the project management teams must always be ready to experience various uncertainties when the project is underway. In its project of starting a courier service, Liberty Travel can experience different risks and various changes that they will need to make in order to enhance the success of the project. Therefore, strategies will need to be put in place to ensure the team is prepared to tackle unexpected changes efficiently. They will also have to procure different items for the success of the project and ensure that the stakeholders observe high levels of ethics when undertaking their activities. The purpose of this part of the project is to analyze change requests, procurement documents, ethics, and references that will be used in the final portfolio project.
Change Requests
Project teams should always ensure that the activities they undertake undergo quality management processes. In project management, a change request is very sensitive since inevitable things take place that require the project teams to make different modifications. In this project, Liberty Travel can encounter such things that require it to make various changes. It is critical to manage these modifications when executing the projects preventive actions, defect repairs, and corrective actions (Hartley, 2020). In this project of offering courier services in North American countries, Liberty Travel will take into consideration these modifications in case of changes occurrences.
Corrective Action
Throughout the courier service project, Liberty Travel will find performance issues that will require corrective action before they become a risk. Finding the root cause of the error will allow the project manager to take the proper action. During this project the delay in the completion of tasks such as retrieval of laws and regulations, as well as permits for the location being built. First it is important to find the reason why the permits have not been obtained, for this case it could be the difficulty of reaching the proper authority that handles the permits. Once this has been figured out, the next step is the corrective action. In this case the corrective action would be to call and schedule an appointment to obtain the permit, verify what information is needed, and then gather the proper documentation for the appointment.
Preventative Action
For the courier service project, Liberty Travel will need to create a plan to prevent risk that may occur throughout the project. One of these risks could be a lack of resources to assist in the build or successful executive of the project. As this project will require large amounts of resources from different locations, it will be important to have an ample amount available throughout the project. The team will identify the issues that may occur with insufficient flow of resources for building stores in new locations and evaluate their severity in case the risk occurs. As a preventative action for insufficient resources would be to ensure there are more then one source available to obtain throughout the life cycle of the project. In order to achieve the action, it will be important to research what resources are available in each location and where to find and transport others if not available in desired location.
Defect Repair
Liberty Travel may experience various defects when implementing the service. An example of defects would be some of the stores not meeting the requires of holding and dispatching parcels due to various reasons like such as a breakdown in communication channels and the transport systems. Liberty Travel must be ready to repair this defect to ensure there is real-time communication between the agents in the stations and the clients. Another issue is possible delays in the delivery systems (Hartley, 2020). This defect repair can only be managed by finding what caused the delay and work with the client to get the parcel to the client. Once that has occurred, knowing what caused the delay will allow for the situation to be resolved with future deliveries.
Procurement Documents
In the project of starting up a courier service division, Liberty Travel will have to procure several things ranging from the basic store equipment to the vehicles that will be transporting the parcels. The following documents will be necessary for the procurement function of Liberty Travel’s project team.
Request for Proposal
Liberty Travel will send out a request for proposal to potential suppliers by specifying buying requirements and resource needs which will enable the suppliers to clearly understand what the company needs (Kerzner, 2017). The request for proposals will be sent to various suppliers such as office and furniture suppliers, building contractors, motor vehicle sellers, telephone and service dealers, technical dealers, and security companies among others.
Request for Quotation (RFQ)
The second procurement document that will play a crucial part in the implementation of this project is a formal request for quotation (RFQ). Liberty Travel will send RFQ documents to the suppliers that will include the required service, delivery requirements, quantities, payment terms, and timeline. Once received the suppliers will accept the proposals if the terms are acceptable to their services. In response, the sellers will submit their prices and terms that relate to the RFQ. These RFQ will be received by the project manager and passed to higher management for review and authorized signatures.
Request for Information (RFI)
Once the company receives the quotations details from the suppliers, Liberty travel will request the supplier for their information in order to enable them to be shortlisted for bidding (Kerzner, 2017). The details that the company will seek are financial statements for ten years, their certifications, past successes, list of their current clients, information on their processes. This document is necessary since it filters out the bidders and selects those capable of handling the project requirements and add them to the shortlist. Other documents that are crucial to this project are the request for bids from suppliers, purchase orders to successful bidders, contract or agreements between the company and suppliers, and lastly, the seller’s proposal to seek for key information from Liberty Travel such as the needs, implementation plan, warranty, and pricing among others. Once these documents are complete, the team will review the information, summarize them, and then send the data to stakeholders to enhance transparency.
Reference List
The references that will be used to understand project management and the implementation of the courier service project are as followed:
Jintana, J., Sopadang, A., & Ramingwong, S. (2020). Matching Consignees/Shippers
Recommendation System in Courier Service Using Data Analytics. Applied Sciences, 10(16), 5585.
This resource provides information on how to create a system that matches the consignees and shippers to ensure the success of courier services. This source will be applied to provide information on how Liberty Travel can develop a system that matches everyone in the chain of courier services. It will be applied in the execution phase of this project.
Karcz, J., & Ślusarczyk, B. (2016). IMPROVEMENTS IN THE QUALITY OF
COURIER DELIVERY. International Journal for Quality Research, 10(2).
This reference explains the modeling of software that promotes the working of courier services and is dependent on dial a ride. Since Liberty Travel plans to enhance its activities, it can design software that will help it carry out its activities smoothly. This document will be crucial in the planning phase of the project.
Hazir, Ö. (2019). A Review of Analytical Models, Approaches and Decision Support
Tools in Project Monitoring and Control. Defense AR Journal, 26(1), 84-88.
This peer-reviewed article examines the issues, techniques, and various analytical models concerning the control systems of projects. The paper analyzed various control tools that enable project managers to regulate their projects under different environmental conditions. This resource will be used to analyze various techniques that will be used to control and monitor the project. It will be applied in the project monitoring and control phase.
Ding, R. (2016). Key project management based on effective project thinking. Springer-
Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
This resource provides information on how it is easy to initiate projects and implement them but when it comes to closure, there are always issues. The scholar provides various instances on how the closure of various usually create different issues. This resource will be applied in the project closure phase by applying key information on how organizations should go through the closure stage.
Joslin, R., & Müller, R. (2016). The relationship between project governance and project
success. International journal of project management, 34(4), 613-626.
The paper explains different things that are critical to the success of projects. All the stakeholders should concentrate and contribute to ensure their success. This resource will be applied to explain how the governance of various parties in a project is critical to the success of various projects. The resource will be used in different stages of the project since it contains details that are crucial in understanding most parts of project management.
Project Management Ethics
During project management, it is vital for project managers to ensure that their teams maintain high levels of ethical concerns. Ethics entail making the best possible decisions regarding resources, people, and environment as a whole (Galvão, 2017). The following list provides ethics guidance that the stakeholders of the project should hold.
All the stakeholders should not have any form of conflict of interest when carrying out their mandate on the project.
Every team should be responsible and accountable for their activities. In this case, the team leaders should ensure that all the members remain upright and adhere to the standards of operations.
There should be high levels of health and safety standards in all the areas of execution of the project.
Conclusion
This section of the project examined different key details that relate to the management of the courier services project by Liberty Travel. The key information that this paper provided is the change requests since the project might entail uncertainties. The paper also analyzed different documents that will be used in procurement activities. It is mandatory for the project’s teams to adhere to high levels of ethical concerns.
References
Galvão, G. D. A., Abadia, L. G., Parizzotto, L., Pião, R. D. C. S., & de Carvalho, M. M. (2017,
December). Compliance and ethics for project management governance. In ECMLG 2017 13th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance: ECMLG 2017 (p. 115). Academic Conferences and publishing limited.
Hartley, S. (2020). Project Management: A practical guide to planning and managing projects.
Routledge.
Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. John Wiley & Sons.