GLOSSARY

GLOSSARY

1. Activities Pieces of workfrom a project that consume time. The completion of all project activities marks the end of the project.

2. Gantt Chart Graphically shows the amount of time involved and the sequence in which activities will be performed. Often called a bar graph.

3. Quality function deployment (QFD) A process that helps a company determine which characteristics are important to the consumer and to evaluate its own product relative to those of others.

4. Immediate precedent An activity that must be completed just before another activity.

5. Strategic Capacity Planning Determine the overall capacity level of capital- intensive resources that best supports the company's long-term competitive strategy.

6. Time-Cost Models An extension of critical path models that considers the trade-off between the time required to complete an activity and its cost. It is often called a “crash”

7. Critical path The sequence of activities in a project that constitutes the longest chain in terms of the time required to complete them. This route does not contain time margin. The techniques used to find the critical path are called the Critical Path Method or MRC.

8. Economies of scope They occur when multiple products can be produced at a lower cost combined than separately.

9. Capacity The production volume that a system can achieve during a specified period.

10. Capacity utilization rate Measures how close the company is to its best level of operation.

11. Matrix project Structure that mixes the structures of the functional project and that of the pure one. Each project employs people from different functional areas. A dedicated project manager decides what tasks will be performed and when, but functional managers control who will be employed.

12. Project milestone Specific project event.

13. Pure project Structure for organizing a project, in which case a self-contained team works full time on the project.

14. Earliest Start Schedule The schedule of a project that lists all activities by reason of their early start times.

15. Concurrent Engineering Emphasizes cross-functional integration and concurrent development of a product and its associated processes.

16. Latest Start Schedule The schedule of a project that lists all activities by reason of their late start times. This program can generate savings if purchases of materials and other costs associated with the project are postponed.

17. Time slack The amount of time an activity can be delayed; the difference between the late start time and the early start time of an activity.

18. Project A series of related jobs that usually lead to a larger product and require a considerable period of time to perform.

19. Contract Manufacturer Organization with the ability to manufacture and/or procure all the components needed to produce a finished product or appliance.

20. Core competence What a company can do better than its competitors. The goal is to have a core competency that creates a long-term competitive advantage for the company.

21. Value Analysis/Value Engineering (AV/IV) The one whose objective is to simplify products and processes, achieving equivalent or superior performance, but at a lower cost.

22. Project management Plan, direct and control the resources (people, equipment and materials) necessary to meet the technical, cost and time constraints of a project.

23. Functional project Structure to which team members from the functional units of the organization are assigned. Team members remain part of their functional units and are typically not fully invested in the project.

24. Capacity buffer Capacity that exceeds the expected demand.

25. Best Operating Level The capacity level for which the process was designed and the production volume at which the average cost per unit is minimized.

26. Focus on capability This can be applied with the concept of plants within plants, in which case a plant has several specialized sub-organizations for different products, even though they are all under one roof. This allows finding the best level of operation corresponding to each suborganization.

27. Structure of the division of work The hierarchy of tasks, subtasks and work packages of a project.

28. House of Quality Matrix that helps the team that designs the product to translate customer requirements into operational and engineering goals.