QSPM Chapter 2: A Case In Point
Quality Software Project Management Chapter 2: A Case In Point
The case study method had been used through out project management training to frame the student with the real world. This practitioner’s handbook makes extensive use of the Chinese Railway Passenger Reservation System Prototype Case Study. The case study is designed to parallel a real life client situation. For that reason, in may areas there may be more data provided than actually used for the prototype. There will be ambiguous situations where information may conflict. Many pieces of data will be presented without adequate discussion – very much like the real world. This case study is useful for instructors as a graded project with class project teams providing their solutions. The entire case is solved with all instructor materials in the Instructor’s Workbook for the handbook. The Chinese Railway Passenger Reservation System will be visited in each chapter with further information and new tasks from the client.
A second extensive case study, the elevator (lift) control problem, will be used as the example in Appendix F for a complete set of project management artifacts. Where technical software engineering concepts are being compared and contrasted as in classical versus object-oriented modeling notation, the elevator problem will be used as reference.
The Chinese Railway Passenger Reservation System Prototype takes place outside of your corporation’s home country and thus some of the constraints will be different from what you are typically accustomed. The opportunity to develop this prototype will allow you to gain the expertise needed to compete for the final project. To have a chance in being named as one of the competitors to build the actual information system, you must have a successful prototype. The first step in this process is the competition with other organizations to build a system feasibility prototype.
You have been sent as a team to establish a project plan to build this limited prototype of the Chinese Railway Passenger Reservation. The following are a list of the known conditions on your work:
· None of your team speaks the language of this country, and you must rely on interpreters to speak with those who do not speak English.
· This country will not allow you to bring programmers or analysts into the country to work on this project. You will be limited to bringing only your team to manage the project and must work with the personnel and equipment resources supplied by the Chinese Railroad Ministry (CRM).
· The local programmers have a fairly solid computer science background but lack most typical software engineering skills. Also, they are weak in object-oriented development skills (they have read and studied OO development) and telecommunications skills. Only recently has China been able to buy telecommunications software from the USA and other western countries.
· The CRM prides itself on having state-of-the-art hardware and software. While this is not necessarily true, there is sufficient hardware and software available for a workstation based client/server approach. Even though there are object-oriented software packages readily available, none of the personnel at the CRM have any experience developing object-oriented systems.
· The CRM attempted to develop a full-blown reservation system before and failed miserably. This was prior to good telecommunications technology being available so the conditions were fairly rustic.
· You will be allowed to interview whatever customers, employees, and managers you need to enable you to accurately develop the project plan.
Background Information on the Chinese Railway System
Figure 2-1. Map of China
More than 52,000 km of rail are in China and it is estimated that 3.7 million Chinese and visitors use the country's railway system. This vast rail network covers every province but Tibet. In China, train tickets can usually be purchased at the China International Travel Service (CITS) desk in the major tourist hotels. Larger cities also have advance booking offices or a foreign desk at the train station. Depending on the distance traveled, tickets are valid from one to seven days: 250 km/2 days, 500 km/3 days, 1000 km/3 days, 2000 km/6 days. Purchasing a train ticket in China can be a fun but frustrating endeavor. Foreign travelers should be advised to plan ahead or use the services of one of the CITS offices in major country capitals worldwide. Please reference Figure 2-1 for a map of China and Box 2-1 for Contact Information for CITS.
Address: / 6 East Chang'an StreetBeijing
CHINA
Phone: / 86 - 1-5128931 Beijing Railway Station
Box 2-1. CITS Contact Information
Tickets are sold for 4 different classes: Hard-Seat, Hard-Sleeper, Soft-Seat and Soft-Sleeper, although not all of these are available for every train. The conditions in these classes will vary from train to train. All trains, cars and berths are numbered and the ticket should show all of these numbers. Hard-Seat is generally a padded upright seat in a coach type car. This class of travel is the loudest and most crowded. Hard-Seat is not recommended for foreigners; however, it may be acceptable for short day trips. Hard-Sleeper is a sleeper carriage with door less compartments. Bunks are arranged in tiers and the lower bunks are used as seats during the day. Soft-Seat is generally found on shorter routes. This ticket offers a more traditional coach setting with reclining seats. Soft-Sleeper offers four bunks in a modest closed compartment. This is the luxury class of the People's Railroad offering clean washrooms, carpets and, many times, air conditioning. Soft class cars are usually located in the center of the train near the chief assistant's (conductors) office.
Dining cars are usually available on train journeys of longer length (12 hrs or more). An attendant announces meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Train attendants will sometimes serve hot tea in the soft-class. The dining car is usually in the center of the train. At station stops you can sometimes buy food from vendors from your window. For longer trips it is worth bringing a few of your own supplies. The larger train stations will have soft-class and hard-class waiting rooms and smaller stations will have a designated waiting area. Signs are posted with the train number and destination telling passengers where to queue. Almost all of the stations will have left luggage rooms.
Prices are based on the class of service and length of the journey. There are surcharges for express service. Tickets purchased through the CITS, for foreigners, are higher in price than those available to the People's Republic Chinese. However, purchasing these cheaper and technically illegal People's tickets in China can be quite an adventure and is recommended for the budget traveler with time to spend. A tourist priced ticket for a Hard-Sleeper express from Beijing to Shanghai (1462 km) is approximately. 46 Yuan = 5.75 pounds or nearly $10.00 US.
Train numbers usually reveal something about the different train types:
· Numbers 1 to 90 are express and have all classes of service. There is a surcharge for the service and speed.
· Numbers 100 to 350 make more stops and have fewer sleeping berths. There is not much of a price difference between these and the special express.
· Numbers 400 to 500 are slower older trains making several stops. There are limited classes and services available on theses trains.
· Number 700 is the suburban route train.
Railroad Building in China [1]
A major challenge facing China is how to maintain an 8 percent growth rate this year amid the severe financial crisis gripping much of East Asia. Domestic demand stimulation, especially injection of massive infrastructure investments, is part of the answer. That includes large-scale railroad building; indeed railroad construction has evolved into one of the major locomotive engines for China's national economy.
On March 29, the State Council made a decision to invest $30 billion in railroad building between 1998 and 2002, or $11 billion more than the figure for the 8th Five-Year Plan (1991-1995). It plans to build 5,340 km of new railroads, 2,580 km of double-tracks for present lines, electrify 4,400 km of railways and add another 1,000 km to the local railroad system-thus increasing the nation's total operating mileage to 68,000 km in the year 2000 and over 70,000 km by 2002.
Railroads play a decisive role in the transportation system of China, a country with a vast territory and a huge population. The country now has 65,000 km of railroads in operation including over 11,000 km of electrified ones. More than 15,000 locomotives, 34,000 passenger trains and 540,000 freight trains are currently in service across the country. Annual total passenger-transport volume stands at 920 million people with cargo volume amounting to 1.62 billion tons.
Nevertheless, the system still fails to satisfy the needs of the country's modernization drive and growing international trade. In fact, transportation density for the major railroads has exceeded the saturation point, and utilization has also come close to the limit of loading capacity. In the central and western parts of the country, low density of railroads coupled with a flawed layout of the original railroad network, has long been hampering the exploitation of huge natural resources. Thus, the backward national railroad system has become a major bottleneck for China’s booming economy.
Under these circumstances, the accelerated expansion of the railroad system will play a significant role in boosting nationwide economic growth, by bringing about more even development in different regions, absorbing excess labor and promoting a unified national market.
As is well known, railroad construction requires a huge investment and involves a long chain of related industries. Larger investments in this field will, like a locomotive engine, drive the expansion of a large number of secondary industries such as iron and steel, machinery, energy, building materials and electronic equipment.
The relevant infrastructure projects for the coming five years will be arranged as follows:
· Accelerated construction of passenger lines with an emphasis on the building or technical revamping of those which link up major economic zones, thus extending them across the country. Special attention will be focused on southwest China, where the transportation deficiency is acute.
· Accelerated building of new all-purpose railroads with the emphasis tilted to the central and western parts of the country.
· Renovation of existing railroads by raising the level of modernization of equipment, through taking advantage of the latest high-tech processes.
· Prioritizing these projects to maximize their social and economic impact.
The 1998-2002 five-year program envisages a T-shape railroad network. An east west "big artery" will be built along the Yangtze (Changjiang) River starting from Sichuan Province in Southwest China. It will be connected to another north south "big artery" along the east coast starting from Harbin in Northeast China.
This plan turns out to be in conformity with the vision of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, put forth in his national construction program decades ago. Construction of this grandiose T-shape railroad network would add wings to the economic development of China's vast hinterland in the southwest.
Meanwhile, on the agenda will also be the construction of a first-ever, high-speed railroad linking Beijing and Shanghai. The new, 1,300 km railroad with a capacity for speeds of up to 250 km per hour is planned for completion in ten years. Its construction would greatly improve the current situation, which lags far behind the transportation needs of the vast region between the two major cities.
Expansion of China's national railroad system on such an unprecedented scale in the coming five years should lay down a solid foundation for pushing the entire Chinese economy to new heights. By happy coincidence, it would serve the same purpose as the construction of six transcontinental railroads in the United States in the last century. This locomotive will certainly pull the train of China toward an earlier realization of the long-cherished national dream of modernization.
Chinese Business Environment [2]
Westinghouse power contract
During Commerce Department Under Secretary David Aaron's visit to Beijing, Westinghouse Power Generation announced April 16 the signing of a $170 million power plant contract in China. Under terms of the contract Westinghouse and its consortium partners, Black & Veatch of Kansas City, Kansas, and CMEC of China, will design and supply the turbine and boiler islands for the 700 megawatt, two-unit, coal-fired Yuzhou Power Plant in Henan Province. The Westinghouse scope includes supply of the turbine-generator equipment and consortium management. The Asian Development Bank is financing the project. Westinghouse currently has eight joint ventures in China and, with its licensees and joint-venture partners, is supplying over 50,000 megawatts of electricity throughout the region. Project construction is expected to begin later this year and the plant will enter commercial operation in 2001.
Non-State group in IFC loan
The International Finance Corp. (IFC), the World Bank's private-sector financing arm, signed an unprecedented cooperation project March 27 involving a Chinese non-State financing house. The deal covers a $30 million IFC loan for Orient Finance Co.-a member of Orient Group and the first non-State finance company in China. Javed Hamid, director of IFC's East and Southeast Asian operations, said the project reflected IFC's keen interest in supporting the development of China's capital market and its private sectors. Hamid said the company would be increasingly active in supporting private business while playing a role in the reform of State firms. IFC, which has already provided $1.15 billion in loans and investment for China, plans to supply another $400 million in 1998. Hamid said IFC is also seeking to take part in the development of China's financial market by cooperating with local rating firms, banks, insurance companies, and securities brokerages.