Project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time.
At the start of a project, the amount of planning and work required can seem overwhelming. There may be dozens, or even hundreds of tasks that need to be completed at just the right time and in just the right sequence.
At Volkslift East Africa we guide our clients through the stages of project management.This ensures that the projects are completed on schedule and within the allocated budget. Lets take a look at the various stages:
Seasoned project managers know it is often easier to handle the details of a project and take steps in the right order when you break the project down into phases. Dividing your project management efforts into these five phases can help give your efforts structure and simplify them into a series of logical and manageable steps.
1. Project Initiation
Initiation is the first phase of the project lifecycle. This is where the project’s value and feasibility are measured. Project managers typically use two evaluation tools to decide whether or not to pursue a project:
- Business Case Document – This document justifies the need for the project, and it includes an estimate of potential financial benefits.
- Feasibility Study – This is an evaluation of the project’s goals, timeline and costs to determine if the project should be executed. It balances the requirements of the project with available resources to see if pursuing the project makes sense.
Teams abandon proposed projects that are labeled unprofitable and/or unfeasible. However, projects that pass these two tests can be assigned to a project team or designated project office.
2. Project Planning
Once the project receives the green light, it needs a solid plan to guide the team, as well as keep them on time and on budget. A well-written project plan gives guidance for obtaining resources, acquiring financing and procuring required materials. The project plan gives the team direction for producing quality outputs, handling risk, creating acceptance, communicating benefits to stakeholders and managing suppliers.
The project plan also prepares teams for the obstacles they might encounter over the course of the project, and helps them understand the cost, scope and time frame of the project.
3. Project Execution
This is the phase that is most commonly associated with project management. Execution is all about building deliverables that satisfy the customer. Team leaders make this happen by allocating resources and keeping team members focused on their assigned tasks.
Execution relies heavily on the planning phase. The work and efforts of the team during the execution phase are derived from the project plan.
4. Project Monitoring and Control
Monitoring and control are sometimes combined with execution because they often occur at the same time. As teams execute their project plan, they must constantly monitor their own progress.
To guarantee delivery of what was promised, teams must monitor tasks to prevent scope creep, calculate key performance indicators and track variations from allotted cost and time. This constant vigilance helps keep the project moving ahead smoothly.
5. Project Closure
Teams close a project when they deliver the finished project to the customer, communicating completion to stakeholders and releasing resources to other projects. This vital step in the project lifecycle allows the team to evaluate and document the project and move on the next one, using previous project mistakes and successes to build stronger processes and more successful teams.
Although project management may seem overwhelming at times, breaking it down into these five distinct cycles can help your team manage even the most complex projects and use time and resources more wisely.
Eco-friendly elevators?
The first question probably running through your mind is what is an Eco-friendly elevators. Some people refer to them as green elevators. One thing to keep in mind is that energy consumption is key. For Eco-friendly elevators the processes we apply, the machines one needs and the type of technologies that you use are used as determinants when integrating the elevators. Other aspects we consider is the lighting, the type of control panels and the HVAC systems plus flooring and painting. All this contribute to an elevator being Eco-friendly thus becoming very key on its outlook and general operations.
We use inventions such as Machine room less Technology which was initially introduced in the mid-1900s. Miniature versions of the technology have made it convenient to run an elevator incorporating a gear less traction design. Our elevators look to save up to 50% of energy reduction than earlier inventions. Some make use of already used energy by recovering the used energy and putting it back to the electrical system. Looking at the large scale of things, you’d comfortably save a lot of energy in a month alone. They are known as regenerative drive system.
How they work
We use current technologies that make use of double deck elevators. They are called group control systems, mostly used in buildings with high traffic. It moves traffic to one lift at a time and minimize on the number of stops to be made. You’ll find one lift only makes stops to even numbered floors or on odd numbered floors. This makes it possible for us to help ease flow especially in urban areas with high traffic.
There’s also the use of in-cab sensors that allow elevators to go into idle mode. The same way phones would go to sleep mode when they’re not being used. Therefore, when the lights go out, the music stops, video screens are off, the ventilation system slows much of electricity. Even the energy consumption is reduced thus helping cut on costs incurred as well.
Lastly, we have the use of destination dispatch software. It takes elevator stops in batches and then makes all the necessary stops in one trip. Other elevators would make every person going to one floor wait for the next trip. This makes a passenger take longer to get to where they’re going.
The advantage of using eco-friendly elevators is that your buildings will use less water, energy and other materials especially when looking at the long term aspect. In order to meet your needs, we are enhancing our products with the capabilities that will decrease large energy consumption as well as help conserve the environment.
They help improve the building’s efficiency as well as property value. Systems with destination control software would help avail transportation much faster and much more efficient travelling capabilities. This would let the building owners to welcome more tenants with traffic needs.