Lt Company Hardware Upgrade

LT Company Hardware Upgrade

LT Company Hardware Upgrade

LT Company is in the market to upgrade its computer systems that includes new hardware and software. These upgrades will meet certain criteria of the components delivered by the LT Company and the implementation being able to take place on time. The budgeting will need to be watched to stay within the set limits. The LT Company plans on making these upgrades on time and on budget while laying out the proper objectives.

Background and Statement of Need

LT Company is a project management company that assists companies with information technology (IT) projects. The LT Company makes an effort to complete the project on-time and with all features present. In the past, many customers complained regarding the slow speed of LT Company. Generating project plans slowly and employee complaining about slow computer response times. Management is allocating funds for the upgrade of the LT Company's computer systems. The current computer hardware is approximately five years old; because of the age management sees the logic in upgrading the computer hardware to improve the quality of both the work environment and production speed.

Project Objectives

Management is giving the Upgrade Project a six month window to update all 20 of the computer workstations throughout the LT Company. For this to be accomplished, $50,000 is budgeted ` for the use of upgrade and acquisition of new hardware for the computer workstations. The computer workstations will upgraded with new input and output devices if it can be done without lowering the quality of new computer workstations.

Mission and Goals

The LT Company is a hardworking company that has been on the road to success; however most companies need to reassess the services they offer from time to time. Customer service is very important. Delivering services that met the high standards of the customers need to be addressed.

LT Company needs to reevaluate the hardware that is currently used by the staff in order to accelerate customer service. The goal is to update and install new hardware, at the same time keeping the customers happy and services going. To do this, LT Company will need to plan the project of changing the hardware in an organized and timely manner so that the staff will not lose any production time.

The new hardware needs to make the services that the LT Company provides faster, as well as enhance the services that are already offered. The second part of the goals for this project for the LT Company is to stay on budget with this upgrade. "The Project Manager will use the work breakdown structure in order to provide a framework for developing a tactical plan to structure the project work" (Marchewka, 2006).

Risks

The main risks to the successful, on-time completion of the Upgrade Project are the following: late delivery of new workstations, new workstation broken parts, and high employee absence. Of these three risks, the late delivery of new workstations is the most severe. The second most severe is having broken parts in the new workstations. The least severe risk is high employee absence because the employees are the easiest to replace by either new ones or outsourcing to other companies.

Contingency Plan

Should the manufacturing company fail to ship the new workstations on-time, a second company is ready to ship the workstations immediately for a higher price. The contract between LT Company and the original manufacturing company explicitly states that the contract is void if the product is not shipped on-time. Management is keeping thorough communication with the manufacturing companies to ensure the product is delivered in a timely manner.

If the new workstations are late because of a shipping company delay, LT Company has Huffman Trucking on stand-by to pick up the workstations wherever they are stuck. Huffman Trucking will charge a considerable fee for this service; therefore, the situation must be necessary before management authorizes expedited shipping. A necessary situation is defined as the shipment being three to four days behind schedule.

If there are broken parts in the workstation due to either shipping or manufacturing negligence, the LT Company's installment crew will determine which parts are broken, order or the new part, and return the defective part for a warranty refund. The warranty refund will be issued only by the manufacturer. If the broken parts were due to shipping negligence, the entire workstation will change at the expense of the shipping company. The manufacturing company will ship the new workstation immediately upon notice of a broken workstation.

Project Approach

To ensure that the project comes to a satisfactory conclusion, LT Company will first order all of the parts from the Grayson Manufacturing Company. Once the parts have been successfully delivered and there are no broken parts, the installment crew will begin making all of the new workstations usable. The installment crew will install the workstations one at a time starting with upper personnel and working downward.

First, the installment crew will remove the old workstation and store them in the IT department for future parts or data backup. Next, the new workstation will be brought to the desk and all of the hardware will be connected. Third, all required software will be installed onto the workstation and connectivity to the network will be tested. Finally, every other computer will be tested to ensure that the programs are functional. Any errors found with the new workstations will be immediately sent to the IT department to determine the solution to the error.

Project Organization

To assist with managing the project, different employees and management members will need to make the decisions on how to proceed with a project. These employees include the following: installment crew, project manager, Chief Information Officer (CIO), and technical support personnel. The installment crew will consist of Jason Martinez, Craig Olsen, and Jonathan Garrett. Stephanie Old, Charlie Nash, and Win Sou will be the technical support staff. The following chart will show the reporting relationship between these individuals:

Qualifications

The CIO, Joshua Whitcomb, has 20 years in IT project management experience as well as having a thorough knowledge of