MAE Final Year Project
Project and Group Management
How we effectively managed our resources to complete a complex project to a high standard and make progress in our field of study.
Semester One
17th September 2019 - 18th December 2019
To manage the project more efficiently the work was broken down into several achievable goals using a work breakdown model and divided between the group, this is shown below:
Work Package 1: Get organised, receive all the necessary training, complete the necessary risk assessments and achieve some preliminary results, this means the bulk of the experimental work could be accomplished in the second semester when the team has a better understanding of the work being undertaken. Liam, Haakon, Ross and Mathieu conducted the majority of the experimental work and due to the problems encountered, the extra assistance was paramount to accomplishing the task on time.
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Work Package 2: Determine the possible industrial process that the recycled glass fibers can be used for and source companies willing to partake in the experiments. Ross was responsible for all external communications and ultimately determined that the bulk moulding process was the most economically viable route to process the recycled glass fibres on an industrial scale.
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Work Package 3: Collect fibres for ITA, Aachen and wait for samples to be sent back. Once samples have been received determine if the process has potential and if so, collect a large sum of fibres and send to Aachen for further experimentation.
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Work Package 4: Learn the basics of performing a life cycle analysis and conduct some preliminary tests to determine sustainability of using the rig to recycle glass fibers. Marcus and Alistair were conducting research into the life cycle analysis and used an open source software to do so.
Semester Two
6th January 2020 - 24th March 2020
The work breakdown and allocation are shown below:
Work Package 1: The aim of the second semester was to manufacture panels using recycled glass fibres that underwent different strength regeneration treatment to determine the best method to recover the fibre strength. Another aim was to manufacture a panel using polyethylene tetraphalate as this is a polymer that can be recycled from plastic bottles and thus the glass fibre reinforced polymer is a product of completely recycled material. This work was assigned to Liam, Haakon and Ross as it was the most important work package and required the most attention.
Work Package 2: After having successfully sourced a bulk moulding compounder willing to use the recycled glass fibres, the team had to collect enough fibres to send away to the company.
Work Package 3: After having received the preliminary samples from Aachen, the team decided to send more samples away and possibly visit the university to view and learn more about the process.
Work Package 4: Marcus and Alistair conducted were to conduct a thorough and detailed life cycle analysis of an optimal version of our rig and the glass fibres themselves.
Team Dynamics
Team dynamics is an important aspect in group work as personal conflicts and disagreements are bound to arise and so managing these effectively is imperative for the success of the group. To determine the optimal roles for each team member to assure they worked in an environment where they felt comfortable was accomplished by completing a team profile form. The team profile form compiled the users answers to some questions and produced a recommendation on what role they would be most suited for within a team. The role delegation is shown on the picture below:
Liam: possessed the most leadership qualities and due to his dominant extroverted persona was allocated the leader of the group.
Marcus: proved to have very strong communication abilities and as a result was allocated as a team worker.
Alistair: obtained similar results to Marcus and as a result was also allocated as a team worker. Marcus and Alistair were in charge of work package 4 due to their excellent team dynamics.
Ross: as an innovative and socially outgoing member of the team, Ross was allocated the role of resource investigator and placed in charge of all external communications.
Haakon: Due to Haakon’s excellent organisational skills he was allocated the role of company worker and was given the role of design and organisation officer which consisted of organising the website, Gannt charts and setting the goals for the coming week.
Mathieu: Mathieu was extremely good at maintain the team focused on the task and assuring tasks were completed before the deadline, as a result he was allocated the completer finisher role.
Group Management
How to effectively manage all of your resources?
In a project with several work packages and numerous team members it can be difficult to effectively delegate tasks to achieve the desired result on time. To overcome this the team utilized Gannt charts and other work breakdown models to make the scope of the work more achievable and easier to delegate.
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Due to the group having six members who all had different timetables and commitments, organising meetings and laboratory work proved difficult initially. However, this was overcome by the creation of a team availability sheet that showed each member’s free time, this proved to be very useful and meant that each team member was managing their time as efficiently as possible.
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Weekly meetings were conducted amongst the team to discuss the progress that had been achieved that week, this time was also used to set goals for the following week and assure the team was meeting the ambitious goals set in the Gannt chart. Bi-weekly meetings with Dr Yang were used to discuss any issues that arose throughout the project and to maintain him in the loop.