Project budget, schedule and resources
Discuss about the Integration of Artificial Intelligence In Hotel System Management.
Project management is a science and art involving the process identifying business or organizational limitations, finding solutions to the problem, planning and designing a solution, developing and implementing the solution. The practice involves coordination of a team of experts each with their own field of expertise.
A project is constrained by financial support from the payers, time and human resources. Therefore, requires documentation of the project as a proposal with set objectives and goals to be met within a constraint of time, finances, scope and quality.
The primary objective of project management is to design, create and implement a project that fulfils the objectives of the client. Additionally, the client’s objectives guide and control all the decisions made by the project management team.
The project management team is a system of integrated human resources working towards achieving set goals within an allocated time and budget. The team is made up of the project manager, field-specific experts, contractors and organizational stuff.
Case study was integration of artificial intelligence in hotel system management. The study involved designing a project proposal within an allocated time frame, financial budget and limited human and material resources to ensure a smooth and successful implementation of artificial intelligence in hotel management.
The objective of this project is to use technology with integrated human capabilities to enable clients to view, pay and book hotel services while also be able to deliver customer care services such as cancelation of bookings and registration of complains.
This project management is broken down into three tasks; budgeting schedule plan and resources allocation and collection.
Budget
The project work break-down structure is divided into four phases that enable easy workflow to enable quality project management and deployment. The phases of the projects are:
Team recruitment: this phase would include the 1st 20% of the work schedule. It would involve the sourcing for computer and information technology experts.
Material gathering: this phase would utilize another 20% of the total work schedule. It will involve collection of equipment necessary for setting up a central server that would host the artificial intelligence programs such as host server and database. The material gathered are high power computer with 100 terabytes data storage capabilities, internet services, local area networking cables and standby power generator.
Configuration of the system’s core: this would account for 50% of the work schedule. This would include setting up staff profiles, agents accounts, contact management configurations and products and categories.
Budget
Testing and deployment. Accounting for the remaining 10% of the work schedule, would involve training hotel stuff on technology use, user testing and review and launching server for public use.
The budget’s rough estimate is at 200,000 US Dollars. The contract estimate after donor negotiations is projected at the same 200,000USD.
Basing on the work break-down structure, the budget allocations is as:
Human resource requirements. |
||
Project manager |
1 |
12000 USD |
Computer engineer team |
1 |
30000 USD |
Internet and networking experts |
2 |
10000 USD |
IT administrator |
1 |
5000 USD |
Technical advisor and trainer |
1 |
3000 USD |
Material requirements. |
||
Super computer |
1 |
30000 USD |
Router |
7 units |
7000 USD |
1 firm |
16000 USD |
|
Cables |
100 meters |
2000 USD |
Power generator |
1 unit |
40000 USD |
Humanoid robots with preconfigured algorithms |
4 units |
80000 USD |
In budget preparation, the following assumptions are considered.
The prices set per unit of the requirements won’t change due to political, economic or demand and supply factors.
The donors and sponsors of the project will approve any additional fees and charges that arise during the project development process.
Project schedule.
This project will take a duration of 6 months from starting date to completion date.
The project will be accomplished in four phases that can be broken down into deliverable milestones that rely on each other’s fulfilments. The major milestones from the work break-down structure are:
Recruitment of the team members. As the first milestone to be achieved in the initiation phase of the business project.
- The required labour and human resources will be sources through interviews with appointment of the most competent individuals.
- The individuals will submit their curriculum vitae through an online portal which will be reviewed, shortlisted individuals will be interviewed and the best of the best experts picked.
- Collection of all the required equipment and tools. The required technological equipment will be purchased from selected bidders.
- The tenders will be advertised online and on local media.
- Tender applications will be submitted through an online portal with the company with the best deal in performance and prices considered.
- The selected companies will deliver the equipment.
Website, robot and core configuration. Depends absolutely on equipment collection and gathering. The tasks in this category will progress in parallel.
A hotel website will be set up to allow advertisements to reach a larger online audience.
purchased robotics will be configured to function according to the management’s requirements and fulfil the organization’s objectives.
The core server will be configured with staff profiles, agent accounts, administrator privileges and client log in and detail storage functionality.
Testing and deployment.
The developed system will be tested against all worst case scenarios to ensure efficiencies in terms of reliability, speed and accuracy.
The stuff will be educated on the use of the new system that sorts to replace the analogue and manual way of operations.
the system will be launched and a repair and maintenance team instituted.
The schedule of the project is developed using the Gantt method to display the milestones and period of achieving till the completion and launch of the project.
Task |
June |
July |
August |
September |
October |
1st to 15th |
16th to 30th |
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Artificial intelligence in hotel system management. |
From beginning to completion. |
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Recruitment of personnel. |
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1.1 application |
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1.2. interviews |
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1.3. appointment |
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Collection of requirements |
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2.1. advertisement of tenders |
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2.2. selection of companies |
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2.3. delivery of equipment. |
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Website design, core configuration. |
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3.1. Website design. |
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3.2. Robotics set up |
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3.3. Core configuration |
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Testing and deployment. |
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4.1. stuff education |
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4.2. stuff testing |
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4.3 client testing and review |
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4.4. launch. |
The Gantts method and tool of schedule preparation in the project was used because:
The Gantts chart gives an instant and easy to easy to understand graphic display of the schedule in time of the respective activities.
The chart enables a better control and project management in terms of time due to the more visibility features of the graphical representation.
Human resource requirements
The graphic representation shows the actual progress easily against the schedule of the project.
Allows the project manager and company management to compare multiple activities or projects to determine the resource allocation and risks. This enables for early interventions.
The Gantts chart allows for reporting of the milestones achieved at various stages of development in design and implementation.
The graphic design of the schedule provides best communication and therefore becomes a tool for negotiations.
The other tools that could be used to create a schedule plan for the project are the critical path method and the Program Evaluation Review Technique(PERT). In designing the schedule of the project, the Gantts chart was chosen over the PERT and the Critical path method because of the ability to easily understand the graphical visualization of the Gantts chart. The Gantts chart also offers more control in time and resource management with instant result display over the other techniques for schedule design.
Resources.
For successful completion of any project, a variety of resources are used. These resources include human labour and expertise, computers and basic tools.
In the project, Artificial Intelligence in Hotel Systems Management, expert judgement and published estimating data are initially used to estimate the resources required using historical statistics from near similar projects in other fields such as banking and medicine to estimate resources and cost.
Bottom-up estimate method was used to determine a more accurate cost and resource allocation for the completion of the project. The resources were estimated using individual packages to prepare the budget.
To settle on the final resource estimates, the Vendor Bid analysis method was used to quantify the resources and total cost required.
The following resources are required for successful completion of the project:
Human resources:
- One project manager; required to develop the project by preparing the budget, schedule for project completion and gathering the necessary resources to ensure smooth development and implementation.
- 1 computer engineer team; used to determine the type of computers required and robotics for the artificial intelligence program. The team is also responsible for all the coding processes in setting up the artificial intelligence system including the website, robot’s operating system and configuring the core server.
- 2 internet and networking professionals as permanent employees; to ensure smooth connections and security in internet and networking capabilities of the system.
- 1 IT administrator; responsible for ensuring repair and maintenance of the system. The IT administrator acts as the permanent employee managing human resources involved in the technical aspect of the system.
- Technical trainer and advisor; responsible for education of the stuff and agents on the use of the new system before deployment. The technical advisor is the chief customer care officer.
Material required:
- 1-unit High computing power computer; would form the core of the system, housing the data server and the algorithms used to run the programs.
- 4 units humanoid robots with preconfigured algorithms; that are the centre of artificial intelligence in supplementing humans in performing the traditional tasks in addition to doing the tiresome repetitive tasks.
- 7 units Wireless network routers; are used to enable connections of the local computers in the different departments to the central server.
- 100 metres Local area network cables; to supplement the wireless technology in data transfer between different departments.
- 1 unit Backup standby generator; to supplement the national grid in providing continuous power.
- Database services; responsible for data back-ups and firewall security to protect the hotel’s data by offering data encryption.
- Finances; to purchase the required material, higher stuff and train employees in proper and efficient use of the new technology that supplements the manual traditional methods.
The critical path method is used to prepare the longest time that a project can take. It is a sequence of tasks arranged in the least amount of time it would take for completion of the task or activity. A critical path is monitored using a network diagram or project management software to ensure the schedule is on course as designed.
The critical path
Potential resources stress points for the critical path are:
The project team. Encouraging hosting concurrent activities and tasks to increase the completion time and minimize the critical pathway.
Acquiring humanoid robots with preconfigured algorithms to reduce the coding and programming time on the schedule plan.
Expert judgement and parametric estimating are used to estimating the duration of the project. Parametric method was entirely used by inputting the data into a data base and generating a Gantt chart. This was used identify the longest time the project may take which formed the basis of the critical path.
Other methods that could be used include the three-point estimating tool which uses the realistic, optimistic and pessimistic averages to estimate the longest critical path.
A buffer time can be added on the realistic estimated time to create a method called the reserve analysis tool.
Conclusion
Project management is a process. The process is broken down into necessary aspects of budget, schedule and resource estimation to ensure a success. The success of the project therefore depends on a good documentation of the project design.
The process of management does not end at launching the project but rather a significant closure with met objectives in terms of financial allocation, time frame, scope of the project and a well-structured repair and maintenance set-up.
References
Kerzner, H. (2018). Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John Wiley & Sons.
Nicholas, J. M., & Steyn, H. (2017). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis.
Briand, L. C., & Wieczorek, I. (2002). Resource estimation in software engineering. Encyclopaedia of software engineering