Introduction

ORPIC is among the most significant organizations operating in Oman and one of the fastest-growing companies in the entire Middle East region (Orpic, n.d.). The company operates oil refineries and provides refined petroleum products to its customers. Headquartered in Muscat, the organization is owned by the Omani government and employs around 2600 employees. The company offers good compensation plans and an appealing work environment for its employees. However, the current canteen present at the ORPIC headquarters is not up to the standards of the company. For rectifying this problem, the company management has decided to provide a state-of-the-art cafe within the premises of its headquarters. The purpose of this report is to develop a detailed project management plan for the establishment of a cafe for ORPIC. In order to enhance the efficiency of the plan, relevant project management tools and techniques will be applied.

Objectives

The fundamental aim of this project is to provide ORPIC’s employees with an eating place within the headquarters so that they do not have to leave the workplace for their meals. Another aim of the organisation is to improve employee communication, morale, and efficiency. Meeting every day at the cafe for lunch or tea will provide the staff with an opportunity to socialise with their colleagues, thereby reinforcing their bond with the organisation (Kniffin, Wansink, Devine and Sobal, 2015). This strong bond will ultimately result in increased worker morale. At the same time, the socialising aspect will also provide the workers with a break from the work-related activity and promote worker efficiency and concentration when they return to work. However, to achieve all these aims, the prospected cafe will have to be up to the standards of the most renowned oil refining company in Oman, while also remaining within the established time and finance bounds.

SMART Goal

Specific	To construct and run a quality café for the employees working at ORPIC headquarters, Muscat
Measureable	Medium-sized with a capacity of around 30-50 employees at a time
Achievable	Using the available budget of 60,000 OMR
Realistic	Will belong to ORPIC
Time-Bound	By August, 31, 2020

Table-1: SMART goal of the project

Project Team and their Roles

Team building has been defined as the bringing together of different people, having diverse skills and abilities, to work together for the achievement of a productive outcome (Fewings, 2013). For the success of any project, the build-up of a competent team is highly critical (Miller and Turner, 2007). Being a medium-range project, an average-sized team will be needed to start and run the cafe. The board of directors and the project manager will select the team and assign duties according to the requirements of the project and abilities of the employees.

Board of Directors

Their primary role will be to choose a project manager, hire the rest of the team, and assign them their duties. They will finalize the amount of money and time to be spent on the project.

Project Manager

The project manager will have the most significant responsibility for the success of this project. He will supervise and administer the project and will also be responsible for proper coordination among the team members. Furthermore, the manager will ensure that the resources are utilized appropriately.

Accounts Manager

The accounts manager will handle the accounts of the establishment and brief the board of directors and project manager about revenues, expenditure, market trends etc.

Procurement Team:

The procurement team will be in charge of procuring the building material at the time of construction and other needed material once the cafe becomes operational.

Kitchen Staff

The kitchen staff will consist of three members that will be in charge of providing the diners with food, beverages, etc.

Waiting Staff

The waiting staff will consist of four members that will serve the employees according to their orders. Members of the waiting staff will also be responsible for the cleanliness and neatness of their assigned tables.

Sweeper

The sweeper will ensure that the cafe premises, especially the kitchen, remains neat, clean, and hygienic.

Task Identity	Task	Responsibility
1	Assigning project manager	Board of Directors
2	Hiring construction company and procurement team	Board of Directors and Project Manager
3	Procuring building materials and furniture	Procurement Team
4	Construction of café	Project Manager, Construction company
5	Furnishing of Café	Project Manager, Construction Company, Interior Designing company, Electricians
5.1	Furnishing of Kitchen	Project Manager, Construction Company, Interior Designing company, Electricians, Plumbers
5.2	Furnishing of water closets/ washrooms/ lavatories	Project Manager, Construction Company, Plumbers, Electricians
5.3	Furnishing of Sitting area	Project Manager, Construction Company, Interior Designing company, Electricians
6	Final Quality Check	Board of Directors, Quality Control Expert, Project Manager
7	Recruitment of the rest of the team	Board of Directors, Project Manager
8	Procurement of foodstuffs and utensils	Procurement team

Table 2: Project team members and their responsibilities

Phases of the Project

The project will pass through four main stages before it is completed. These are:

1. Define

The first thing to be taken care of is to define the objectives of the project and make clear why it is essential to achieve these objectives. The main objective of this project is to provide the employees of ORPIC with a cafe inside the premises of its headquarters. The time and budget needed for the project are also assessed in this stage (Whatley, 2014).

2. Design

The second stage is to properly design and plan about how the project is to be started and completed. This stage will answer important questions like; how the cafe will become operational? Who will be involved in making the project a success? Also, this stage will also determine the time when the work start till the moment it would become operational (Whatley, 2014). For this, firstly a plan will be charted explaining the schedule to be followed. Secondly, different personnel will be hired and assigned their respective roles. Thirdly, how the budget is to be used will be planned.

3. Deliver

The actual construction work of the cafe will commence at this stage. The main actors in this stage will be the procurement team, construction workers, electricians, painters, designers, etc., along with the project manager who will supervise the work and direct the workers if any changes are needed. After the construction work is completed, the team needed to run the cafe will be hired. The details of the required team have already been mentioned in Table-2.

4. Develop

Once the project is completed, a review will be undertaken to highlight the shortcomings of the project. Also, details on how the gaps can be avoided in the future will be discussed (Cadle and Yeates, 2008).

Activity List

Activity Number	Activity	Start Date	Finish Date	Days required
1	Assigning the project manager	01 May	03 May	3
2	Recruitment of construction company and procurement team	04 May	06 May	3
3	Procuring building materials	07 May	12 May	6
4	Construction of café	13 May	13 June	30
5	Furnishing of café	14 June	04July	20
6	Final Quality Check	10 July	12 July	3
7	Recruitment of the rest of the team	13 July	25 July	12
8	Procurement of foodstuffs and utensils	26 July	16 August	20

Table 3: Activity list for the project

The project is adequately planned with sufficient time available to complete its different stages satisfactorily. The construction work will be completed by 12 July 2020, whereas the cafe is scheduled to run on 1 September 2020, so that there is enough buffer time to avoid any disturbance due to unforeseen events. The time for the recruitment of cafe team and procurement of foodstuff and utensils is added in the buffer time because these tasks will not necessarily require a building.

Work Breakdown Structure

Work Breakdown Structure is used to explain how the work will be undertaken. Work breakdown structure divides the whole project into smaller parts that can be analyzed and approached individually (Globerson, 1994). It clearly shows the level of responsibility of every team member.

Figure 1: Work Breakdown Structure of the project

Network Diagram

The network diagram explains how the work will proceed in stages. It establishes the level of priority to be given to every stage (Harrison and Lock, 2017).

Assigning the Project Manager

2

4

5

8

9

7

6

Start

Recruitment of construction company

Recruitment of Procurement team

Cafe Construction

2

2

2

2

Cafe Furnishing

Final Quality Check

Procurement of foodstuffs and recruitment of cafe team

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

Figure 2: Network diagram for the project

As the diagram shows, construction and furnishing of cafe will be critical to the project.

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart graphs the project plan and shows the amount of time to be given to the different stages (Wilson, 2003).The Gantt chart for this project is presented here.

Figure 3: Gantt chart explaining the breakdown of time into different stages

Budget Cost

The following table shows the available budget and how it is to be properly managed to complete the project.

Sr. No.	Activity	Budget in OMR
1	Construction Materials	20000
2	Construction Company + electricians + plumbers+ interior designing company	10000
3	Sitting Area	5000
4	Kitchen	5000
5	Staff Hiring	8000
6	Quality Control	2400
7	Ingredients for food and utensils	6000
	Total Expenditure	56,400
	Total Budget Available	60,000

Table 4: The estimated budget breakdown for the project

As the above chart shows, construction and furnishing of the cafe will be the most critical task and will require the greatest portion of the budget.

Quality Plan

The quality plan establishes the durability and quality of the project.

Activity ID	Testing measure	Testing approach	Performance check	Performance checked by	Performance reviewed by	Approved by	Review Date	Approval Date	Project Results
101	Building Strength	Inspection	Pending	Quality Control Expert	Project Manager	Board of Directors	11 July	12 July	Pending
102	Building Appeal	Inspection	Pending	Quality Control Expert, Interior Designer	Project Manger	Board of Directors	11 July	12 July	Pending
102	Kitchen Working	Performance test and inspection	Pending	Quality Control Expert, Kitchen Staff	Project Manager	Board of Directors	11July	12 July	Pending

Table 5: Quality tests for the project

Project Risk Log

As risks are present in any task being undertaken, it is wise to have a prior idea of how that risk will affect the project (Leus and Herroelen, 2002). This risk log will try to assess the possible obstacles that can disturb the project.

	Severity of risk	Frequency of occurrence	Level of risk	Responsibility	Action	Review Date	Status
Delay in supply of raw materials	Medium	Low	Low	Project Manager	Engage different suppliers	12 May	Pending
Unavailability of required staff	Medium	Low	Medium	Project Manager; Procurement Team	Publicize employment opportunity	6 December	Pending

Table 6: Risk log of the project

As illustrated in the chart above, it can be deduced that a delay in the supply of raw materials and the unavailability of the required staff are two fundamental risks that can affect the completion of the project. Therefore, to minimize the threat of these risks, it is vital for the project manager to ensure that sufficient inventory is managed in order to encounter the unforeseen circumstances. Furthermore, buffer time will be maintained as a contingency plan so that the required staff can be recruited in the mean time without delaying the project delivery (Ortiz-González et al., 2014).

Conclusion

The planning for the construction of a cafe at ORPIC headquarters, Muscat, has been presented in this report. The cafe will provide the employees at ORPIC with an eating place inside the premises of their workplace, thus improving employee communication, motivation, and efficiency. This report has used different tools, including activity list, work breakdown structure, Gantt chart, budget-cost analysis, etc. to present how the completion of the project is to be undertaken.

References

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