Project and Quality

Project management is not a new management trend; it is a professional practice that has reached wide acceptance in many facets of industries. The purpose of project management is to foresee as many of the dangers and problems as possible and to plan, organize and control activities so that projects are completed successfully in spite of all the risks. This process should start well before any resource is committed, and must continue until all work is finished. Organizations that have adopted project management as a key competency have benefited from improved project outcomes to significant competitive advantage. There are many aspects involved in successful project management: Solid processes, tools & techniques, experience, hard work, good teamwork and good work practices. This paper focuses on two important aspects of project management – the processes and the tools & techniques we use for the successful completion of a project.

In many developing countries, it is estimated that 60% of project management professionals appear to pay less attention to project success factors of timely completion, budget fidelity, and high quality, considered the critical success factors for successful completion of construction initiatives and projects. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between project budget and the independent variables of time and in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, in Africa. The theories of iron triangle, scientific management, and strategic management represented the theoretical underpinning and constituted the theoretical framework for this study. In this study, one hundred and sixteen project managers were randomly selected from the population of construction professionals in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The project managers recruited for this study, completed the survey entitled the Six Key Performance Indicators developed by Ngacho and Das (2014). The results of this study involving multiple linear regression analysis, indicated that a weak positive correlation exists between the independent variables (time and quality) and project budget, F(1, 114) = 37.08, p < 0.001. Time recorded the highest beta (? = .50) and quality (? = .06). Attention to key the project management performance indicator of time could improve project outcomes in the Ghanaian construction sector. From a social welfare and positive change standpoint, this study findings could be useful to improve the quality of projects and the knowledge from it in some way could contribute to ameliorating the lives of project management professionals and community members in the area.

Strategy development in higher educational institution ensures quality and improvement of efficiency in functioning. This paper discusses the development and deployment of strategies in higher educational institutions with specific reference to Srinivas Institute of Management Studies. This paper also include the strategies to be deployed by the institution to ensure adequate information and feedback to be made available to the top management and the stake holders, review the activities of the institution and encourage and support involvement of the staff in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the institutional processes.

Nowadays, airline industry has a very delicate and significant role in sustainable development of countries as the successful performance of this branch of industry can create a strong motivation for other industries of a country by doing its mission, objectives and strategies. Using a suitable evaluation framework like Balanced Scorecard can relate to strategic plans and objectives, evaluate different areas of the organization, as well as presenting a full report of organizational performance. However, in countries where the organizations are significantly influenced by the cultural-religious factors of society, the standard Balanced Scorecard model cannot work out. Thus, in this research, we aim to extend the model by adding “culture and values” perspective as a new and determinant factor. In order to do this, we identified the indictors of the model and localized it by library studies and interviewing the managers and experts of several airlines. Then, the most important functional indicators in areas such as financial, customer and market, internal business processes, learning and growth and culture and values were identified and a questionnaire containing 267 indicators in 5 components for determining the significance of each indicator were randomly distributed among 110 managers and experts of the airlines. The components and indicators of the questionnaire were tested by parametric T-student. Consequently, using TOPSIS technique as one of the MADM decision making techniques, the components and indicators were weighted and ranked. The results show that the “culture and values” is the most important component. According to this, we designed a performance evaluation model for airlines which reflects the values and cultural circumstance of a specific country and it seems that using this model can be applied by all other countries with the similar cultural, social, political and economic context.

Companies need project portfolio management (PPM) to deal with the increasing number of projects and used it to ensure strategic arrangement and adequate use of available resources. Moreover, customers were demand more attention from their suppliers. The management of a project portfolio and the corresponding customers, supplier’s engagement signified a link between PPM and external stakeholder’s engagement. Supplier engagement in project portfolio management success had become an increasingly popular technique for improving project capability and project performance in PPM. By defining the range of PPM, this study hypothesized a connection between external stakeholders like customers and supplier’s engagement and project portfolio management success. The results were based on a cross-sectional sample of 100 well known Software Houses in Lahore, Pakistan. Study employed Pearson’s correlation and step wise hierarichal regression to find the results. Study found a significant relationship between customers and supplier’s engagement and PPM success. While moderating effect of role clarity showed partial moderation.

Data mining is a technique that utilizes a range of data to provide valuable information. Customer relationship management through data mining can be a powerful tool for attracting, retaining, and promoting customers in today businesses. Banks, financial institutions, and insurance institutions are of those business that collect and storage many data from their customers on a daily basis. This research on one of private banks in Khomein city was accomplished in September 2012 in which 5939 customers with 7199 transactions were studied. These transactions were modeled using four demographic characteristics including age, gender, education, and occupation. At first, data was preprocessed which was the most time-consuming part of the study. After that, using visualization technique, graphic display of customers' demography was obtained. And then, the customers' transactions were predicted based on their transaction volume and probability, and it was checked whether the customers accept the bank's new service (i. e. instant card issuance) by using decision tree algorithm. Finally, the customers were clustered by conducting the two step algorithm and the result was that the cluster of 2543 transactions (cluster 1) is comprised of target customers. The characteristics of customers in target cluster are the age of 25~40, often having a bachelor degree, and be self-employed.

Disaster preparedness is one of the phases within the disaster management cycle which covers implementation or operation, early warning systems and capacity building so that the population can react appropriately when an early warning is issued. Disasters have inflicted a heavy cost on human, material and physical resources. A comprehensive review of the literature has revealed that the development of disaster management strategies, such as preparedness, must be undertaken before the event strikes. The specific objective was to evaluate fire disaster risk plans for preparedness in Nairobi County. The research employed a descriptive research design to carry out the study in order to establish the relationships between the variables of interest. Exploratory and Evaluative research designs were used. Both quantitative and qualitative research designs were used to conduct the research. Households were sampled purposively such that only those from the informal settlement were interviewed and the research involved face to face interviews with 110 households by the use of questionnaires. Findings revealed that most respondents (89.6%) indicated that fire disaster risk plan for preparedness and awareness campaigns were important. Most respondents agreed with awareness initiatives both at household and institutional level except for allowing children to play near fire and lighting of cigarettes in fuel flammable areas. Fire escape plans were the most adopted fire awareness initiative as a fire disaster risk reduction measure.

Success is a disputed concept which is difficult to exactly define and quote. This study is related to Software Engineering field in which success factors and perception of key stakeholders (i.e. top management, core team and clients etc.) about software project success is tried to identify. Study postulates that there are so many dimensions which are behind of a successful software project. Success has different meanings and varies according projects to projects in Software Engineering industry. It is due to conflict in determination and selection of success factors among stakeholders. Software project stakeholders may differ based on their organizational culture and related goals, current market structure and their customized needs satisfaction (as a client or end user) from intended use of software. Qualitative technique has been applied by using thematic analysis on articles between the time frame of 1991-2010 with major three keywords of “software project success”, “project success” and “perception of stakeholders”. Study provides better understanding why there is a divergent view of success which stakeholders of a software project perceives and must need to know.

In the present paper, we have selected the sponge iron industry in Chhattisgarh which uses iron – ore as the main raw material for the purpose of analysis of the iron-ore suppliers, Six important criteria have been considered and four suppliers are taken into account. In this paper MCDM (MultiCriteria decision making) is used for determining order preference with the help of the parameter related to Supplier selection. MCDM refers to making decisions in the presence of multiple, usually conflicting criteria. These criteria are compared using AHP and their weights are found. Using these weights, Topsis is applied to find the ranking of the suppliers and to choose the best among them. Result shows supplier S3 is best alternative supplier.

The study was guided by the following specific objectives: the effects of customer focus, top management commitment, people management and process management on the performance of construction projects. The descriptive research design was used in the study. The study was carried out in Kiambu County. Questionnaires were used as the tools of data collection. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the employees of the construction firms. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics which entailed use of frequencies and percentages. Inferential statistics where the researcher employed Chi-square and The Spearman Rank Order tests were used. The study found out that; most of the respondents were of the view that their organizations placed a major emphasis on communication and training processes with a view of enhancing customer focus. The top management was fairly evaluated on quality performance. The capacity of their project teams in terms of periodic training needs assessment to ensure sustainable construction projects performance. The organizations had put in place fair mechanisms to ensure that the team members fully comprehended the business processes within the organizations. The study recommended that: the construction companies should seek to place greater emphasis on customer focus. This is by way of always aligning their quality management practices and ethos on the clients’ needs with a view of seeking to ensure maximum satisfaction and repeat buying. The top management in the construction industry should seek to always lead by example and from the front in seeking to enforce quality standards.