INFS6071 Project Management in Business

S1_2024

Project Initiation Document (PID)

1. Project definition

1.1 Background

The company of Radiant Star plans to seize the potential growing opportunities after the recovery of the post-pandemic, especially for the industry of tourist. In Australia，Sydney is a metropolitan city with resourceful tourist attractions. Moreover, the market of electric vehicle (EV) is developing quickly. The business of EV rental outlets at CBD of Sydney is a reasonable proposal for company growth. And with the aid of the solid data analytics and an easy-to-use mobile app on the portable devices, our team can run this business operation efficiently supported by the detailed Project initiation Documentation and Prices 2 methodology. The ongoing revenue will come from fantastic customer service and competitive prices.

1.2 Project Objectives and Desired Outcomes

The strategic goal of Radiant Star includes increasing profitability and efficiency. The EV rental at Sydney project will support profitability of business at the background of tourism recovery and the downside of EV price. The growing revenue and declining cost contribute to total positive profit. Moreover, through providing high standard customer experience and data-aid technology with competitive rental price to realize the economic scale of business. And in the industry revenue of car rental in Australia, the large and medium passenger car accounts for 65.1% (IBIS World, 2024). Radiant Star can focus on such market sector to avoid unnecessary operation cost. Car rental aggregator websites provide an opportunity for relatively small company like Radiant Star to show up in front of the consumer without heavy cost in marketing campaign investment. The desired outcomes include attract new customers quickly through the competitive price and excellent service at reasonable input costs.

1.3 Project Scope and Exclusions

The project scope contains the slightly shift toward international travel market due to tourism recovery. But domestic market is still the main target for start-up business. And a user-friendly online booking system would be an important order access for future development. The scope of geography is constrained by five rental outlets in Sydney and its suburbs, which means the users can only drive the car within the New South Wales. The exclusions of this EV rental project will not cover several luxury-class cars, but more economic and middle-class vehicles for tourist and short-term business traveller.

1.4 Constraints and Assumptions

The constraint of project will contain availability of funding and time. The EV rental project must be an asset section for Radiant Star. In good scenario, the project can make profit within one-year, and the technical people can come from headquarter or recruited with skilled industry experience. The whole service process must be easily accessible to new customers and maintained at low cost by project team. Assumptions to support this project includes sufficient employees to proceed project time scales, the funding is adequate, the new business can be profitable project of Radiant Star.

1.5 The User(s) And Any Other Known Interested Parties

The leading users are tourists and short-term business travellers. The EV car would need recharging at electric station. And the Government of NSW is planning to invest $146 million to develop world-class charging network. In coming years, there would be 4 or more fast or ultra-fast chargers installed in each station within 5 kilometre in CBD area. For large traffic NSW highways, this will also happen at 100-kilometre intervals (Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Stations, 2024). Then, the confidence of the charging cannot be an obstacle.

1.6 Interfaces

The project will interface with several parties, including any stakeholder affected by the project, Expectation from users, functionality of mobile app, Radiant Star IT department. Radiant Star marketing campaign, Radiant Star customers service department, Third-party vendors for EV, Radiant Star finance and procurement sectors, Government standards.

2. Project approach

The project approach would be inventory control, online platform, and cultivation of loyal customer base. The project team must develop reasonable inventory control for trade-off the benefit when doing trade-in and sell-out old fleets. More customers can be attracted when they can quickly locate and book rental car through online platform. This will also increase the asset turnover efficiency. In the fast-developing EV industry environment, the up-to-date fleets can continually attract customer, which would benefit from foreseeable return on investment.

3. Business case

In the brief version of Business case, the point is estimated costs can be press by online mobile app, and fast-growing EV industry. The risks of project can be released by the recovery of international tourism. The benefits can come from marketing activities provided by car rental aggregator websites and excellent customer experience, and reasonable inventory control with the aid of data analysis.

Details about Business Case would be attached as an appendix to the PID.

4. Project management team structure

Radiant Star's electric vehicle rental project management team structure includes the following eight departments.

5. Role descriptions

A project sponsor is a senior management representative from within the organization (Balldry, 1998). Its main responsibility is to provide solid financial support for projects and ensure that projects are consistent with the company's strategic and business goals. However, the project sponsor does not directly participate in the running process of the project.

The opposite is the project manager, who is directly involved in the entire project process. The main responsibility of this department is to supervise the project throughout the four phases of initiation, planning, execution, and closure to ensure the delivery of the final project results. Project managers are an essential part of the project team as they are involved in many aspects such as leadership, team building, motivation, communication, influencing, decision-making, planning, and coaching (Pettersen, 1991). Therefore, the project manager's responsibilities also include contacting various departments of the project team and becoming the go-between for the team to communicate.

The project team includes the operations department, information technology department, customer service department, marketing department, finance department, and human resources department. The operations department is responsible for the daily operational management of the electric vehicle rental project, purchasing or leasing vehicles suitable for the target market. The information technology department is responsible for developing software to help customers conduct the electric vehicle rental project more conveniently and quickly. The software includes car type introduction, online reservation system, real-time monitoring of car status, and other functions to help the team and customers obtain a high-quality experience.

The customer service department is responsible for communicating with customers. This includes signing car rental agreements with customers in the early stage, helping customers solve problems encountered during vehicle rental in the mid-term, and contacting customers promptly to obtain feedback in the later stage. The customer service department will help the electric vehicle rental project obtain a stable customer source and lay a solid foundation for the marketing department's marketing strategy. The marketing department is responsible for building the brand image of Radiant Star's electric vehicle rental project through advertising and social media. Design and implement a variety of sales strategies, such as old customers recommending new customers to sign contracts to receive discounts, stabilizing existing customer resources, and successfully attracting new customers.

The finance department is responsible for managing the overall project budget and fund allocation to ensure the smooth operation of the project. They need to monitor the actual capital expenditure of the project and compare it with the budget to analyze the difference to adjust the resource allocation of the project promptly. The Human Resources department is responsible for the recruitment of project team staff. They need to screen resumes and conduct offline interviews and physical examinations to select employees who are physically and mentally suitable for the project to work in the project team and bring better benefits to the electric vehicle rental project.

6. Quality management approach

Projects need to apply the following quality standards to achieve better quality deliverables. First, ISO 9001 quality management system. This means that all of the company's processes are described clearly and understandably for all employees, ensuring that projects are aligned with the company's strategic goals (Priede, 2012). It assists project teams in reducing internal costs and improving service quality, production efficiency, and profitability (Fonseca & Domingues, 2017). Secondly, Six Sigma. It is a business process that reduces costs by eliminating product or process defects and increases profitability through stable and capable processes (Linderman et al., 2003). Therefore, it helps streamline project operations and optimize applications, ensuring that electric vehicle rental projects bring higher profits to Radiant Star.

To meet Six Sigma quality standards, the team needs to apply DMAIC to improve existing processes. The DMAIC process includes five parts: define, measure, analyse, improve, and control (Takao, 2017). Define quality critical issues, and measure and document current processes. Use methods such as Pareto charts, fishbone diagrams, and regression analysis to analyse the main causes of defects. Improve processes by testing alternatives and implementing controls to ensure defects do not reoccur over time (De Mast & Lokkerbol, 2012).

To meet the quality standards of the ISO 9001 quality management system, different departments should clarify their responsibilities. The project sponsor must conduct regular reviews to ensure the project's feasibility under the ISO 9001 quality management system. The project manager should develop project codes that comply with the standards and conduct regular internal audits of the project team to continue to improve the project under the standards. The project team should reasonably execute the project under the ISO 9001 standard and in conjunction with its own department's conditions to ensure that the project complies with operations, data analysis, customer management, and marketing standards.

References

Baldry, D. (1998). The evaluation of risk management in public sector capital projects. International Journal of Project Management, 16(1), 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0263-7863(97)00015-x

De Mast, J., & Lokkerbol, J. (2012). An Analysis of the Six Sigma DMAIC Method from the Perspective of Problem Solving. International Journal of Production Economics, 139(2), 604–614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2012.05.035

Fonseca, L., & Domingues, J. (2017). ISO 9001:2015 EDITION- MANAGEMENT, QUALITY AND VALUE. International Journal for Quality Research, 11(1), 149–158. https://doi.org/10.18421/IJQR11.01-09

Linderman, K., Schroeder, R. G., Zaheer, S., & Choo, A. S. (2002). Six Sigma: a goal-theoretic perspective. Journal of Operations Management, 21(2), 193–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0272-6963(02)00087-6

Pavez, I., Gómez, H., Liu, C., & González, V. A. (2022). Measuring project team performance: A review and conceptualization. International Journal of Project Management, 40(8), 951–971. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2022.11.001

Pettersen, N. (1991). What do we know about the effective project manager? International Journal of Project Management, 9(2), 99–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/0263-7863(91)90068-7

Takao, M. R. V., Woldt, J., & da Silva, I. B. (2017). Six Sigma methodology advantages for small- and medium-sized enterprises: A case study in the plumbing industry in the United States. Advances in Mechanical Engineering, 9(10), 168781401773324. Sagepub. https://doi.org/10.1177/1687814017733248

Electric vehicle fast charging stations. (2024). NSW Climate and Energy Action. https://www.energy.nsw.gov.au/households/guides-and-helpful-advice/electric-vehicle-fast-charging-stations#:~:text=You

Jeswanth, D. K. (2023, August). Log in to IBISWorld. Services.ibisworld.com. https://my.ibisworld.com/au/en/industry-specialized/od5485/at-a-glance