EMGT5220

Engineering Project Management

Project Proposal
Research & Development

In-The-Box Remote Control Design

Instructor
Thomas P. Cullinane

Student
Sebastian Herforth

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Table of Contents
Letter of Transmittal ...................................................................................................................... 3

Project Objectives .......................................................................................................................... 5

Critical Success Factors................................................................................................................... 6

Assumptions ................................................................................................................................... 7

Project Organization....................................................................................................................... 8

Implementation Plan...................................................................................................................... 9
IDEF0 .............................................................................................................................................9
Work Breakdown Structure ............................................................................................................9
Scheduling ................................................................................................................................... 11
Responsibility Matrix ................................................................................................................... 11

Financial Plan ................................................................................................................................ 12

Resource Allocation...................................................................................................................... 14

Monitoring and Control ............................................................................................................... 15

Risk Assessment ........................................................................................................................... 16

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 17

Appendix 1: IDEF0 ........................................................................................................................ 18

Appendix 2: Work Breakdown Structure .................................................................................... 23

Appendix 3: Gantt Chart .............................................................................................................. 24

Appendix 4: Responsibility Matrix............................................................................................... 25

Appendix 5: Financial Plan ........................................................................................................... 26

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Letter of Transmittal
March 15, 2016

Professor Thomas Cullinane

Program Director, Project Management
Snell Engineering Center, Northeastern University
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115

Re: Project Proposal for a re-design of the in-the-box remote for our flagship speaker system

Dear Professor Cullinane,

I am writing you this proposal to seek funding for this 6-month project which aims to re-design
the in-the-box remote for our flagship speaker system. The project idea stems from a member of
Development who wanted R&D to look into designs for a new remote. The attached document
will clearly lay out the project into specific work tasks and show the benefits that an improvement
on these accessories could have.

This R&D project will explore up-and-coming design/consumer trends and new material
opportunities that will expand our knowledge of current engineering methods to then implement
into our current and future speaker products. This project will specifically focus on potential new
designs for remote controls for our in-the-box remote for our flagship speaker system.

As I have mentioned in previous meetings, I believe that we have fallen behind our competitors
in terms of innovative design. I believe this project could be the first of many that will slowly help
us to research modern designs, materials and consumer trends.

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The first part of the proposal will describe the project in detail, including a work breakdown
structure, the specific scope, overall organization, budgeting and scheduling. Whereas the
second part, the appendices, will provide diagrams and charts to back up what has been said in
part one.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to
hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Sebastian Herforth

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Project Objectives
This project features two main objectives, one being a physical outcome, the looks-like-feels-
like prototype for the remote, and the other being findings on market/user experience. The
objectives are as follows:

Create a compelling replacement for the in-the-box remote control that ships with our
flagship speaker product. The remote should introduce a new method of control that
adheres to design goals of SIMPLE, DIFFERENT, and the VOLUME control should be
special. As the remote will be shipped in the box alongside the speaker, the cost must be
kept to a minimum. Current solutions are produced for $6. Three different designs will be
brainstormed and at the end the most feasible option will be chosen. The final prototype
should be a looks-like-feels-like model alongside feasible electrical component designs.
This design will be passed on to development to then be made into a production unit.

Provide user research findings for current user preferences with regards to user
experience and user interaction with our and competitors technological ecosystems.
These findings should be reflected on the remote itself and form a basis for a potential
shift in design that will then transfer over to our other products. The remote should act
as a way to reflect that new design/aesthetic change, which could then be ported over to
speakers and other products.

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Critical Success Factors
The remote will keep the main functions of our current remotes, its four media buttons,
basic music controls and syncing options. The measurements of the prototype of the
remote will not exceed 5cm x 12cm x 4cm. The total production cost should not exceed
$6, which includes material, manufacturing and packaging. However, this should not be a
disincentive to not explore more premium materials, even if these wont be used in the
final design.
The three design goals, SIMPLE, DIFFERENT, VOLUME, are open to interpretation as this
is a R&D project meaning new creative designs are desirable. With this in mind however,
the new designs should not cause the aspects of manufacturability, intuition and usability
should not be negatively impacted.
The user research findings must come to a definitive conclusion that will provide
important information as to how current customers feel about the firms ecosystem, as
well as a conclusive write up on what competitors are designing.
All materials, personnel, facilities will be available over the entire project
Complete the project within the allotted time.
A project completion package that will allow the design and findings to seamlessly be
passed on to development.
Close monitoring of the project by the PM, ensuring each member is on track.

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Assumptions
The following assumptions for the runtime of the project were made:
The materials needed for prototyping are all available in stock.
The prototyping machines needed are all available and fully functioning.
The personnel needed for the project are all available, healthy and motivated.
All documents listed in controls and mechanisms are available to use by any team
member.
Work space is available for the project, which includes meeting rooms, access to
prototyping machines and standard work equipment

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Project Organization
The project will run under the organization of the Research and Advanced Development
department (R&AD), a subsection of R&D, alongside the implementation of the project manager
to oversee the execution of the project. The project organization diagram below (Figure 1)
illustrates the personnel breakdown. The project fits conveniently into the matrix organization of
the firm.

Figure 1: Project Organization Chart

As can be seen, the project manager will oversee all divisions of design and user research and will
report to the R&D Manager. Mechanical, Industrial and User Research leads will each be
accompanied by a second engineer. Both mechanical and industrial designers were used to get a
broader range of creative designs than simply having mechanical designers work on it. The
demand for electrical engineers for this project is not as great as mechanical engineers, and thus
only requires one member. The project team under the project manager will therefore feature
seven employees.

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The project will likely not make up the employees full workload as their expertise is required on
other R&D projects. This is done to maximize the employees time, for example working on other
projects when waiting for prototypes to print.

Implementation Plan
To layout the project as clearly as possible, the implementation plan features an IDEF0, a Work
Breakdown Structure, a Gantt chart as well as a responsibility matrix.

IDEF0
The IDEF0 diagram located in Appendix 1, shows three levels of the project. The charts show
the inputs, who and what are needed to perform the activity, the constraints, as well as the
expected outcome for each step. The A-0 diagram gives an overview of the project, while the
A0 diagram breaks the project up into the three different steps of User Research, Mechanical
Design and Electrical Design. The A1 Diagram shows the information flow for the User Research
portion, the A2 Diagram lays out the flow for the mechanical and industrial design and the A3
shows the flow for the Electrical Design. The outcome of these three steps is to have three
design prototypes along with potential electrical designs. What is not included in the IDEF0
diagrams is the last part of the project which includes presentations and final decisions. This
will simply be a compilation of all the findings and a showcase of the prototype in the form of a
presentation. Please see responsibility matrix to see who is responsible for what in the last
phase of the project

Work Breakdown Structure

The Work Breakdown Structure is broken down into five main components. Each component
includes information as to its estimated time, preceding activity and the main required resources.
It can be seen in Appendix 2.

The first step, User Research, is setup in four steps. Competitor research will look into what our
competitors currently have on the market, rumoured products and overall direction of the

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company. This will give us insight into what we are up against at this point in time, but also what
we will be up against in the coming years. Current and Future trends will uncover user
developments and trends with regards to what users are currently demanding and new future
demands. There will also be work done into the customer feedback on our current product
ecosystem. This will give insight into what users currently like and dont like about our products.
This information will then flow into engineering and design decisions made. (See Appendix 1 for
information flow in the form of the IDEF0, showcasing the feedback loop in diagram A0)

Steps 2, 3, 4, are all very similar in the approach that they take. Information and findings are
taken from User Research and implemented into the brainstorm phase of the Design phase.
Mechanical and Industrial designers will all work on different designs and ideas at first, and then
collectively narrow this down to one design each. The brainstorm phase begins with sketching,
getting inspiration from outside sources trying out competitor remotes. The CAD phase focuses
on bringing the best ideas to the computer where renderings and some simple FEA is done. This
step starts off with basic shapes and geometry of the remote, followed by button placement,
interior design, and finally a final form factor. Narrowing this down further they will then take
this design and create a final prototype in the Prototype phase. This phase consists of using 3D
and Objet printing, foam model creation, and machine shop machining to create the best possible
looks-like-feels-like model. Different materials will be tested to see which combination looks
and feels best. Electrical design will focus on selecting components, whether that is carrying them
over from current designs, or looking into more modern components. They will work with each
designer to make sure an electrical design is possible for the proposed design.

Step 5 is the project wrap up phase where each design prototype is finalized and presented to
select members of development. Development will take these designs and work on them to
create an actual working prototype and eventually a shippable unit in a following project. The
user research findings will be passed on to upper level management with the goal to inspire new
projects and potentially new directions for the company. This will be done through
documentation alongside a separate final presentation.

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Scheduling
The method of project scheduling used is a Gantt chart. The Gantt Chart can be found in Appendix
3. It shows an overview of the project with regards to the duration, and portrays the overlaps of
each activity. Here Prototyping was made its own activity, however it is simply part of the
mechanical, industrial and electrical design components. Columns of start, end date as well as
duration are also included.

Responsibility Matrix
The responsibility matrix is standard for the firm. The R&D Manager should be informed of the
prototype phase for both the mechanical and industrial design and the final presentations of the
findings. They are also needed for the final approval before the project is passed onto the
development department.

The role of the project manager is to oversee each step and therefore needs to be informed after
every step is complete. This should be done for documentation as well as an indirect approval.
Documented approvals are needed for completion of the prototype stages for mechanical,
industrial and electrical designs. The project manager is responsible for making sure the
presentations are set up with completed prototypes and documentation, and are also
responsible for final approval of the design.

Electrical design should be supporting industrial and mechanical designs in their prototyping
phase, implementing their electrical designs into the prototypes. Each designer is responsible for
their tasks as well as creating and presenting their final presentation for their prototype.

The responsibility matrix is found in Appendix 4.

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 Financial Plan
The project cost was estimated by looking at the projected completion time for each task and the
probable cost of equipment/tools. Salary figures were taken from the national average for each
position. Below is a table (Table 1) which shows the total cost and the number of personnel
needed for each task. A more detailed table is included in Appendix 5.

Table 1: Summary of Financial Plan

TASK SUBTASK PERSONNEL TOTAL COST

($)
USER RESEARCH Competitor Research 2 User Researchers 5100
Current/Future Trends/Customer 2 User Researchers 13920
Feedback
MECHANICAL Sketches/Brainstorm 2 Mechanical 3920
DESIGN Designers
CAD 2 Mechanical 3920
Designers
Material Selection 2 Mechanical 4070
Designers
Prototyping 2 Mechanical 15400
Designers
INDUSTRIAL Sketches/Brainstorm 2 Industrial Designers 3920
DESIGN
CAD 2 Industrial Designers 3920
Material Selection 2 Industrial Designers 4070
Prototyping 2 Industrial Designers 15400
ELECTRICAL Component Selection 1 Electrical Designer 1540
DESIGN
Circuit Adaption 1 Electrical Designer 1540
Prototyping 1 Electrical Designer 9200
DESIGN Presentations All 7 8780
EVALUATION Designers/Researchers
Evaluations All 7 8780
Designers/Researchers
MANAGEMENT 1 Project Manager 15290
Total 118770

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The following is a table (Table 2) detailing the cost per month for each task.

Table 2: Monthly Budget Breakdown

MONTHLY BUDGET
TASK Estimate 1 2 3 4 5 6
USER RESEARCH 21500 14000 7500 0 0 0 0
MECHANICAL DESIGN 24400 4200 4200 7000 4500 4500 0
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 25000 4500 4500 7000 4500 4500 0
ELECTRICAL DESIGN 11580 2250 2250 3080 2000 2000 0
DESIGN EVALUATION 18290 0 0 0 0 0 18290
MANAGEMENT 18000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000 3000
TOTAL 118770

The total cost estimate is based on the following assumptions:

The project is estimated to take up around half the employees time, around 20 hours per
week.
Costs for material and prototyping machine usage (3D/Objet Printing) have been
included, and as most materials are in stock only minimal shipping costs were included.
No overhead or renting costs for the facility are included
The equipment costs include basic supplies, time in the machine shop and cost of
prototyping materials.
No new hires are needed, therefore there are no hiring or administrative costs needed in
that regard.
No administrative costs were included, this is part of the overall cost of the department,
not the project.

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Resource Allocation
This project consists of 8 employees, including engineers, researchers and the Project manager,
as well as the R&D Manager who will be making the final decision as to which prototype/idea will
be passed on to development. Administrative personnel have not been included in the overall
project organization. The project is designed to take up around half the employees time (20 hours
per week), as their expertise will also be required on other projects. Resource levelling is not
required for this project as each expert is needed for their activity, and the stages are in a logical
order needed for design. There is little room to move these stages around.

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Monitoring and Control
The project manager is responsible for keeping an organized log on the status of each step of the
project. As can be seen in the Responsibility Matrix (Appendix 4), the project manager should be
informed after the completion of each step, however they should also be holding weekly
meetings with the different designers and researchers to make sure everything is on track. After
the completion of each activity the project manager will create a progress report, commenting
on performance and results, and documenting where all the information is available.

The progress for each step will be assessed by the designer/researcher himself, giving an estimate
on how far done they think they are. With their prior experience, this will give a good enough
indication on if the task is running ahead of, on or behind schedule. Project members should be
reminded and made aware of the timeline each week by the project manager to ensure
transparency and awareness.

The project manager will closely follow the Gantt chart (Appendix 3) with regards to time
durations of each activity. If an activity needs extra time or is done earlier than expected, the
project manager is responsible for making changes to adapt the schedule to the new situation.

A final report will then be written after the decision has been made as to which design will be
passed on to development. The project manager will write this report along with the R&D
manager. This report will include the designers sketches, renderings of their CAD designs, photos
of their prototypes, and an inventory on where to find the digital files as well as the tangible
prototypes.

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Risk Assessment
The nature of the R&AD department has always been to be the creative think tank of this firm,
and therefore the projects associated with it are usually lower in risk as they draw from the
allocated research funds. With the exception of the User Research portion, this project does not
rely much on what is happening outside of the firm. Therefore, there should not be much risk
with regards to material availability as this should mostly be in stock.

As with all projects in this department, this project is purely exploratory. It is uncertain as of now
whether the remote designs of the project will benefit the company in the long run. Regardless
of physical outcome and use of the designs in the future, the user research portion will give us
necessary insight into current trends, and the practice of designing give the designers experience
and knowledge which can then be applied to new projects.

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Conclusion
To conclude this report, we believe that the outcomes of this project will benefit the company
greatly. Not only will we end up with three compelling and completely different remote designs
for our speaker system, but we will gain invaluable information on current market trends,
feedback on our current speaker ecosystem, as well as reports on what our consumers are
currently doing.

As this project is relatively low risk, we believe there are very little drawbacks to performing this
project. With close following of the implementation plan shown in this proposal, the project
should be completed within the allotted time and should not exceed the estimated budget.

Success of the project will depend on the all materials, personnel and all other assumptions are
true, as well as the project manager making sure everything is running in a timely manner. Once
the project is complete, the findings will be passed onto the Development department in hopes
of carrying these ideas into production and eventually into the hands of our consumers. User
research findings will aim to inform upper management of the public perception of the company,
its competitors and where the market is moving.

Once again, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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Appendix 1: IDEF0

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Appendix 2: Work Breakdown Structure
Table 3: Work Breakdown Structure

STEPS TIME (WEEKS) PRECEDING RESOURCES

1. USER RESEARCH
A. COMPETITOR RESEARCH 2.5 Consumer
reports, Surveys
B. CURRENT TRENDS 8 Consumer
reports, Surveys
C. FUTURE TRENDS 8 Consumer
reports, Surveys
D. CUSTOMER FEEDBACK 8 Consumer
ON CURRENT reports, Surveys
ECOSYSTEM
2. MECHANICAL DESIGN
A. SKETCHES/BRAINSTORM 3
B. CAD 3 2a CAD Software
C. MATERIAL SELECTION 3 2a Machine shop
with access to
different
materials
D. PROTOTYPE 10 2a, b, c 3D printer &
machine Shop
3. INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
A. SKETCHES/BRAINSTORM 3
B. CAD 3 3a CAD software
C. MATERIAL SELECTION 3 3a Machine shop
with access to
different
materials
D. PROTOTYPE 10 3a, b, c 3D printer &
machine shop
4. ELECTRICAL DESIGN
A. COMPONENT 2 Electrical
SELECTION components
B. CIRCUIT ADAPTION 2 Current remote
designs
C. PROTOTYPING 10 4a, b Electrical
components
5. DESIGN EVALUATION
A. PRESENTATIONS 1 1, 2, 3, 4
B. EVALUATIONS 1 1, 2, 3, 4

More specific descriptions for each step are found in the main body under the WBS section

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Appendix 3: Gantt Chart

Figure 2: Gantt Chart

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 Appendix 4: Responsibility Matrix
Table 4: Responsibility Matrix

WBS RESPONSIBILITY
SUBPROJECT TASK R&D MANAGER PM MECHANICAL INSTUSTRIAL ELECTRICAL UX
RESEARCH 1A
1B
1C
1D
MECHANICAL DESIGN 2A
2B
2C
2D
INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 3A
3B
3C
3D
ELECTRICAL DESIGN 4A
4B
4C
DECISION 5A
5B

Key: Responsible
Inform
Approval
Support

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Appendix 5: Financial Plan
Table 5: Detailed Financial Plan

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