Developing a guidebook for managing relocation projects: a car industry case study

Abstract

Due to competitive behavior changes in industries and the increasing technology complexity, organizational projects became highly difficult to manage. Thus, many organizations required to implement and develop new strategics and concepts by standardizing the processes and procedures. In addition, applying standardization in the project management practices not only fosters organizations to adopt structured methods and provides reliable data to ensure the project conclusion in time, quality, and costs effectiveness, but also gives tools to new project managers for managing projects with consistency and efficiency, while planning, leading and executing to achieve an expected result. The present dissertation was developed in Bosch Car Multimedia Portugal S.A., at Braga, under the scope of the integrated Master of Industrial and Management Engineering at the School of Engineering of University of Minho. The project was executed in the Production Engineering department and the main goal was to standardize the Relocation Projects by creating a guidebook to assist new project managers in their integration and in management throughout the project life cycle. The work developed was based on the research methodology designated as case study with data collection through the participants’ observation and document analysis. These methods revealed that by standardizing and creating a guide to compile the main content in form of a guidebook, it facilitated project managers in managing the activities and processes throughout the phases of the project. Thus, the guidebook for Relocation Projects encompasses the description of activities and documentation that a project manager should use to maintain effectiveness in decision making and providing information needed to identify the essential process and tools. In the last stage of the project, a workshop and a questionnaire were held with thirteen professionals of project management and trainees from the same department to assess their understanding of the content in the guidebook. Of these thirteen participants, approximately 61.5% considered the guidebook a great contribution to managing relocation projects at the company.

Face às mudanças de comportamento competitivo nas indústrias e ao crescimento da complexidade tecnológica, os projetos organizacionais tornaram-se altamente difíceis de gerir. Desse modo, muitas organizações adotaram novas estratégias de estandardização na gestão de projetos de forma a garantir a total eficácia na conclusão de projeto, no tempo e custos previstos, satisfazendo os requisitos de qualidade do mercado. A presente dissertação foi desenvolvida na empresa Bosch Car Multimédia Portugal S.A., em Braga, no âmbito do Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia e Gestão Industrial na Universidade do Minho. O tema proposto foi executado no departamento de Engenharia de Produção com vista a padronizar os Projetos de Realocação através da criação de um guidebook de forma a auxiliar novos gestores de projetos na sua integração e na gestão ao longo de todo o ciclo de vida do projeto. O trabalho desenvolvido teve como base a metodologia de investigação estudo do caso, sendo a recolha de dados sustentada através da aplicação de métodos de observação direta e análise documental. Estes métodos permitiram obter a informação necessária para identificar os processos e ferramentas essenciais na gestão de projetos de realocação e, por fim, compilar todo conteúdo na forma de um guidebook. No final da elaboração do projeto, foi realizado um workshop e posteriormente um questionário com treze gestores de projetos e estagiários do mesmo departamento, sendo o objetivo avaliar a sua compreensão do conteúdo do guidebook. Desses treze participantes, aproximadamente 61.5% consideraram o guidebook um ótimo contributo para a gestão de projetos de realocação na empresa.