Building a Car Showroom Report

Introduction

This work seeks to provide a working report on the enunciation of a start-up car showroom with servicing and repair facilities in the country. There are many aspects, financial and non financial, to be considered and also to ensure that all activities are bound by the WBS in terms of cost and time frames.

Description of the project

The project deals with the report on the setting up of a car showroom; which is not a complex task, but the task that requires essential planning and extensive research before the setting of the showroom and after the idea generation about the showroom. The project report consists of the use of Microsoft project 2007, due to the extensive benefits provided by them in the car industry. The automobile industry is one of the most attractive and profit reaping industries in the current scenario, where there are much possibilities for growth.

The project description in the setting up of the car showroom includes the scope in the setting of the showroom, the extensive reason for selecting such an industry, the benefits of the project by the setting up of the industry and the key benefits of the project by using the Microsoft tools. It also deals with the numerous deliverables in the showroom and how they have a positive effect in the business, the risks associated with the project and the various methods of analysis like event analysis, the diagrams that need to be incorporated for the allocation of the resources and the risk analysis which needs to be conducted.

Introduction to the project: The car showrooms

Any car is an expensive product that deals with the comfort of a family. Automobile industry is an increasing segment where they need a large range of the customers with diverse preferences. The car purchase has much effect on the sales environment and has many positive driven results in the society; the car showroom can be a well flourished one in the market when they have a wide range of customer services and customer relationships.

Scope of the project

As the start-up company, the scope has to relate much to the location, investment, infrastructure, brands and the quality in the customer services.” Car showrooms need to be located on highly visible sites with good access to main transport routes and an eye-catching frontage. Display of the car range is paramount and the layout and orientation of sites and display areas will have a major impact on sales” (Langdon).

Various other attractions that make the car industry a success are, the cars have a very prominent role in the economic cost, efficiency and effectiveness in the dealing. The study will provide solutions to the management by considering customer response, and the level of fulfillment towards the service provided by the management or organization. The main scope of the project is the extensive coverage of the various areas of the project like identifying various areas and the key deliverables that can make the business flourish and identifying the different kinds of the functional areas that need to be focused on. Various kinds of setting is needed in the car showroom where there are a lot to do with the new setting up of the industry. The main scope of the project relates with the placing of the market sales, the market policies and reaching up the desirable targets in making the firm a success.

Reasons for taking up the project

The main reason for taking up the project is the attraction towards car industry, the profitability that can be earned from the business, the everlasting growth in the industry and the success in the automobile arena. The UK industry has its attention in the streamlined car showroom, which is its dissonance in the new market. The extent of the internet also boost up sales of cars,” One recurring theme, constantly reverberating throughout the trade at present, is the growth of the internet. We know that 80% of car buyers use a search engine to investigate a potential purchase. We also know that customers are 10 times more likely to look at a car advertised” (The Future for Car Dealer Marketing?).

Anticipated benefits or justification of the project

Anticipated benefits or justification of the project by way of using Microsoft Project 2007 for the project related to car show room helps to understand the various anticipated benefits of the project undertaken for Car showroom. Microsoft Office Project 2007 provides a healthy project organization apparatus with the correct mix of usability, authority, and elasticity to build the Car showroom. So that, it will assist to supervise projects more professionally and efficiently. It is necessary to keep a well planned and studied project reports, agendas, and funds for the setting up of a new car showroom.

The main benefits of the project

1. Efficiently handling and recognizing project agendas: It will help to set a practical route with project panel, organization, and consumers by means of Office Project 2007 in the Car showroom to construct timetables, assign resources, and organize funds.
2. Get creative rapidly : The Project channel and an interactive scheduling assistant assists the project organization procedure in order to develop the new car showroom. Customizable methodologies help properly allocate the various activities in the project.
3. Control existing information: Office Project 2007 incorporates other Microsoft Office schemes and agendas effectively. This will help to efficiently manage all the areas to develop new facilities.
4. Construct specialized charts and drawings: Examine and account project information in specialized reports and diagrams by way of making use of the visual information engine, which produces templates for Visio figures and charts in Excel on the information related to the project.
5. Successfully converse information: It will help to simply present all the information in a variety of designs according to the requirements of stakeholders. Make use of the photocopy image to Office Wizard to easily sell abroad Project information into Microsoft Office 2007 for official papers, Office Excel 2007 for tradition diagrams or worksheets.
6. Grow superior power of resources and funds: With Office Project 2007 in car showroom, it helps to effortlessly allocate resources to responsibilities and alter their assignments to identify solution for the troubles occurring in the over all allocation of projects.
7. Rapid access of data required: It helps in easy and rapid access of all the information and also it will help to save the time needed as well as in combining information so that it will help to rapidly place and examine exact information.
8. Obtaining Office Project 2007 offers prosperity of help to learner and knowledgeable users. It comprises a healthy assistance of search engine, elegant tags, and wizards.

Start and finish points of the project

Identifying start and finish points of the projects reflect the means of identifying the start and end points to carry out to complete the construction of the new car showroom. Construction of the new car showroom by way of using Microsoft Office Project 2007 helps in easy identification of the start and finish point of the work.

For every organization, there will be a set of team responsible for particular project activities within the organization. Some of the organizations use Gantt chart for the easy identification of all the activities carried out to construct the new car showroom. Gantt chart also demonstrates the beginning and finishing time of each activities of the project. It is one of the commonly accepted methods for arranging various activities of the project. Every firm is using Gantt charts for arranging the aim at a particular period. The Gantt charts are calculated to demonstrate the criteria that are aimed at achieving in a definite phase. Gantt chart helps us to understand the time taken to complete each phase. Gantt chart for the paper is shown below. The project team stands for a set of inhabitants working together towards achieving a set of predetermined aims and goal. The industry’s risk manager for the project of today faces many novel and thrilling challenges. Traditionally, the work is centered on guaranteeing financial integrity of the institution and maintaining a secure environment. Today, the focus has broadened to include preventing patient injury and improving the quality of service. The administrator and physician must now respond and increase the emphasis on a system that can monitor, promote and guarantee the quality of service. Microsoft Office Project uses a influential setting up of engine to assist and align new car showroom industries projects and assignments with available resources.

Any constraints or risks likely to affect the execution of the project

The project of building a car showroom was a turnkey one. For the completion of the project there were many constraints. The project needed to have aesthetic value and a very stylized modern car showroom. The execution the project management consisted of co-coordinating the project from the time of planning to the final stage of successful completion of the project.

The constraints were of many types like:

• Financial constraints:

During the execution of the project, we faced many constraints; the most important was the financial constraint or the funding. Even though all the banks were ready to finance for the project, due to the sudden world wide recession the bank loans were not easily available. And even though we got the approval from three financiers, it still took time to finally use the finance in the project because of other legal problems. Similarly the rise in the price of materials also affected adversely the budget that was prepared for building the car showroom.

• Availability of materials:

The materials needed for building the car showroom like concrete, steel frames, iron bars, cement, bricks etc soon became insufficient. At the beginning of the project itself a proper material requirement plan was drawn in order to ensure the availability of materials through the present supply chain. But the sudden problems in the supply chain created a lot of constraints in the project due to the unavailability of materials at the right time and at the right place.

• Less availability of internal resources (specifically technical staff):

The irregular availability of the internal resources like technical staff and plant and machinery created a lot of constraints in the execution of the project. The technical staff was irregular at their jobs and did not attend to work properly. This resulted in delay of the work at individual stages and in the execution of the project. Another internal resource constraint was the sudden breakdown of the plant and machinery.

• Climatic and site constraints:

Climatic and Site constraints like making available the materials during the rainy and winter season created a lot of constraints in the execution of the project. The site location was a little interior and so the transportation of materials to the site became a problem.

• Local constraints:

A local constraint was mainly the competitive factor. There were other car dealers’ showroom and they tried to create troubles in the execution of the project like trying to canvas our special manpower like the technical staff and the local laborers which resulted in shortage of manpower for our project. Then the locals created a problem in the execution of the project by blocking the water supply in the site.

Activity list (briefly discuss each project activity)

Project management requires careful planning and organizing efforts in order to achieve the specific objective of constructing the car showroom. The first activity that our project team did was to appoint a planning committee. The second task that we did was to prepare a project plan in which we calculated the budget of the project, the resources needed for the implementation of the project, the risks associated with the project etc. The next task was the evaluation of the project at the site and the planning committee prepared the materials’ requirement plan. The next step was to divide the project into stages and for each stage of the project a specific project team was formed. Bank loans were arranged and the funding process was made smooth. The next stage was detailed with staffing which included the finalization and procurement of laborers and technical staff. Our team appointed a project manager and also managers at each stage. Finally building materials were procured and the building project started. The team members reported to the project managers about the completion of the work at stages and provided an accurate and timely report. The other activities included the combating of the constraints when they rise and trying to find alternative solutions so that the project is executed within the stipulated time and cost. The project manager dealt with several issues and managed the whole team.

Work Break structure (WBS)

The Work Break structure (WBS) could be seen as below:

1. Total Project Summary: 720 hours with Budget of $400,000

1.1. Design phase: 320 hours – outlay of $160,000

1.2. Programme phase: 140 hours-outlay of $ 40,000

Program Task 1: 80 hours – $30,000

Program Task 2: 60 hours- $10,000

End Programme milestone:

1.3. Testing Phase – 120 hours- outlay of $60,000

Program Task 1: 40 hours – $20,000

Program Task 2: 40 hours – $20,000

Program Task 3:40 hours- $20,000

End Programme milestone:

1.4. First Design of car showroom Phase: 70 hours: outlay of $100,000

Start Milestone

Design task one:

1.5. Second and Final Design Phase: 70 hours: outlay of $40,000

Design Task 2

Design Task 3

Design Task 4

End Design Milestone

In addition to being the recipient of high class cutting-edge design and a heap of comfortable furniture, a car showroom must be arranged to please the tastes and fancies of even the most difficult customer. While in the past it was possible to design and run a car showroom with old fashioned desks and tables, now the entire concept of a car showroom has changed. It has to have a spruced up look, clean, hygienic and well maintained, and there needs to be a large number of cars on display, preferably on a ramp. Nowadays, customer servicing plays a critical role and it becomes necessary to consider such aspects as play areas for kids, Wi-Fi, lounge areas and so on. The place needs to be conducive for business and also for visual effects of seeing and inspecting cars on display. Personnel manning such high range car showrooms should be in a position to offer state-of-the-art customer services through incomparable levels of thorough knowledge of the cars that are being sold and serviced.

The members of staff should comprise of automotive professionals who are well versed in all aspects of automobile engineering and technical intricacies of various car brands, innovative design, advanced technology and superior brand performance.

A WBS is the functional decomposition of a system which seeks to break the project into chunks of work at a level of detail that meets planning and scheduling needs.

Some of the main advantages and benefits that would accrue through deployment of a good WBS are as follows:

• Accountability and responsibility could be easily identified since the work allocations is matched with the corresponding employee
• The position of work, stage of completion and budget use vis-à-vis allocation is quickly and easily discernable, in the event of any changes prompt action could be taken
• All the mutually supporting parts of the project are linked and very transparent. Each cog in the wheel knows what it needs to run.
• All start and end events are clearly defined- leaves no room for ambiguity or double purposes- responsibility, accountability and performance can be easily gauged
• Work assignments are all independent in nature and thus, one phase could commence without really waiting for the next to end, all tasks are well coordinated and structured to meet overall corporate goals and objectives.

Conclusions

In simple terms, work break structure breaks down the task or even the project to its least and minimum, basic levels. Since all constituents of a task are well known in advance, it begins easy to allocate and enforce them at the implementation stage. For instance, in the case of the Car Showroom, one of the most vexing angles that could come up are in terms of which vehicle dealerships and authorized agencies to take up, Hyundai, BMW, Nissan, Ford or Skoda. What are the relative financial and non-financial benefits and threats under each dealership- should we go in for used cars also. Do the companies bear cost of upkeep and showroom maintenance etc – How to advertise and gain customers- etc these are all aspects that could be gained and controlled.

In real terms, the WBS is like a roadmap for travelers traversing unknown territories- it helps to pin down individual accountability and responsibility and make the project very efficient, time bound and effective.

Works Cited

1. Langdon, Davis. Cost Modal: Car Showrooms. Building Magazine. 2007.
2. The Future for Car Dealer Marketing? Motor Trade Insider. 2009.