Creating a Marine Project Management process at Trans-Auto Group

Abstract

The Trans-Auto Group’s marine business is having to evolve from a component supplier to project supplier, which has put strain the organisation as the company has had no project process in past. This has caused projects to be managed in different ways depending on the project manager, with no standardised process through-out the organisation. The objective of the thesis was to create a project management process for the Trans-Auto group, by studying different project management standards and condensing them into an easy-to-understand handbook for the project managers in the company to use.

A linear development process was used for the thesis which consists of a constructive research and development approach to studying project management literature and examining the current method of project management at Trans-Auto. Meeting notes and interviews with internal stakeholders were an important part of the study of how projects are currently managed. Study of project management literature and standards were then used to create the process and improvements.

As a result of the work performed on how projects are currently managed and the study of literature, a project handbook was written which describes the process of managing projects all the way from the point the customer requests a solution all the way to the delivery and closing of the project. The project handbook also provides instructions on how to identify projects, how to identify risk and how to identify stakeholders.

The conclusions of this thesis were that project management is complicated and there is no one-size-fits-all solution, rather the solution must be tailor made for each organisation and the business they work with. However, it was determined that by implementing the process correctly, the transition from a component supplier to a project supplier should be feasible.