Management Project - Improve Internal And External Communication

Joint Diploma in Management Studies Management Project Improve the Internal and External Communication in our Office By Lau, Kwok Cheong Student ID: 992200

Supervisor: Dr.Elizabeth S.C.Shing

Due Date: June 7, 2002

Content •

Executive summary

p.2-3

•

Introduction

p.4-8

o Company background and history o Site office background o State problem and the approach to solve it •

Objectives

•

Methodology and data collection procedure

•

SWOT analysis

p.12-16

•

Customer need

p.17-19

•

Resource allocation analysis

•

Analysis result and conclusion

•

Proposed improvement plan

p.24-28

•

Implementation and Control

p.29-30

•

Conclusion

p.31

•

Appendix

p.32-33

•

References

p.34

p.9 p.10-11

p.20-21 p.22-23

1

Executive Summary

The proliferation of e-business has affected every major industry worldwide. It is forecasted to grow exponentially over the next few years. Even traditional industry like construction development is not exempt from its impact. Our parent companies now have its own information portal for the employees to obtain the information they need through the Internet. The Internet continued to get more organized. In fact, the Internet with its World Wide Web has become a good place to start research and distribute information. The so-called econstruction concept promoted by the construction industry recently is born from the same concept of e-business - to reduce the cost of information flow in the course of business, and lead to significant efficiency gains and value creation.

Customer needs dictate everything. The need to keep up with the state of communication technology is evident here. Hong Kong has excellent broadband coverage. It also has high household and business computer penetration and Internet penetration compared with other parts of the world. All these statistics show that world class company today cannot do business without quality telecommunication service in the information economy. Container Terminal 9 (CT9) is the largest container terminal project in the city so far. Such development project scale clearly demands adequate electronic communication facilities to support its operations, which are what we lack of at the moment.

We now turn our attention to the challenges and opportunities ahead, because of the need to keep up with the communication trend in the e-business environment. Communication such as electronic interactions (through e-mail and Web browsing) between governments, contractors, suppliers and other project members – have become a key driver for the project success. “The world of e-business is moving very quickly. We will be on constant lookout

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for improvement opportunities and to make suitable enhancements to our facilities so that they offer the best potential for our cause” (Digital 21 Strategy, 2001, p.7) 1. We are convinced that given the resources we have, the management support we count on, we can motivate people involved in this project to get connected and benefit from the network effects of the improved communication facilities.

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Introduction

As a business practice in the construction industry, the contractor will provide almost everything needed to carry out the project to finish. That includes construction material, equipment and personnel; all specified in the project engineering requirement specifications. In our case, it includes the engineer representative site office building, its equipments and utility service too. Usually, the persons who draft the requirement specifications will leave some flexibility in them. That is probably why we find it is not so specific in some categories of equipment. One reason is that it is difficult to foresee what exactly we need at the planning stage. Another reason is that the drafter will like to protect the interest of the client (owner of the project), and so will sometimes over estimate, say the quantity of equipment needed. It is to our advantage because it is easier to give up our right to obtain all the stated equipment in the specifications than to ask for more when we find out what exactly we need.

There is not much of a rule, guidance and setup policy for computerisation in regards to communication by computer in specific. So looking for guidelines in this area from Maunsell and Scott Wilson will not lead us anywhere. It looks very likely that we need to decide on our own as how to provide ourselves the electronic communication service based on what we already have at present.

We have a very limited budget to begin with, due the unusual low bid for the project by the main contractor. That means the client will be very reluctant to increase the expense cost. Of course, it will be possible unless we have a very strong reason to justify the extra expense. Furthermore, the business practice in the construction industry with respect to our organization structure is that any request for additional service/equipment will need to be submitted as a site instruction request. It will go through the site’s Chief Resident Engineer

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and then to the Project Management Officer (also representing the client) for final approval. Sometimes, it may be not be that easy. So even our office management agrees to computer user’s request and the corresponding proposed solution, it will not have much chance to get approved if the client is not expected to think the same. Also, what is mentioned about communication by e-mail in the equipment requirement specifications is not clear and specific. It only mentions that all computers in our office should be able to send and receive e-mail. No mention of how to do it. Are we going to have broadband Internet connection? What computer programs should we use for communication?

If we are talking about equipment request, it is mostly dictated by the user’s need. As long as it is work related, it should be considered. Further consideration is called for if the requested equipment is not included in the project requirement specifications. One has to come up with good reason to justify the request. Like in any office, there are times when staffs want to have service and equipment more for their own purpose than for work. Our office is not exempt from politics in this regard.

As far as computerization is concerned, the computer equipments installed in our consultant office are not many when compared with other business office of the same size. It has a lot to do with the size of the project. In our case, this construction project is a large one. So we have more than the average number of computer equipments than other projects.

We now have a working computer local area network in our site office with forty desktop workstations and one file server. There is only one data line arranged with the Hong Kong Telephone. Plus, we only have one dial-up Internet connection and an e-mail account registered with our Internet service provider, Netvigator.

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The way we communicate internally with each other in our office now besides face to face, is through telephone and paper memo. Externally, we use facsimile and Internet e-mail on one specific computer workstation. So currently there is only one computer, which can access the Internet and thus can allow our staff to send and receive e-mail. This particular computer is the personal computer of our clerical officer. It is the one and only one computer, which has Internet connection mentioned above. The clerical officer or her subordinate handles the email correspondence between our site office and the other various parties. So if other staff like an engineer would like to send an e-mail to the Public Works Department of the government, he will need to go the office of the clerical officer and use her computer. In a way, it is somewhat inconvenient. That means even if other staff wants to browse the world wide web, he/she will need to use the clerical officer’s computer in order to do so.

The current problem is a request made by some staffs to have internal e-mail service for better communication in the site office, and external e-mail service so that they can communicate easier with parties outside our office. Quite often, staffs need to send message and document to a group of people rather than a single person. Occasionally, staff might need to browse the Web site of local government departments, sub-contractors, material suppliers, etc. That is something, which the computer systems we have at the moment cannot provide.

My approach to solve the problem is to look at the request literally, and the motives behind it. I will analyse the problem systematically. Find out the real customer needs. Search for a feasible solution within any constraint that we have. Weigh on the cost and benefit of the possible options found, and make the final recommendations. The critical elements to be discussed here are justifiable customer needs, available solution and constraint. The main points of my argument in the final recommendations are high feasibility, acceptable system

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reliability, low support cost, affordable administration cost throughout the duration of the construction project.

7

workstations

Workstation with Internet connection

Container Terminal 9 Development Engineer Representative Site Office Intranet Topology

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Objectives

Devise an acceptable solution so as to end the electronic message and information search service request, once and for all. The solution should fulfil our company’s staff internal and external communication needs. It all has to be under the assumption that no increase in cost will result.

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Methodology and Data Collection Procedure

The analysis methodology I have employed to study the problem is first have a survey of our site office internal and external environment. That will give us an idea of what we can do, and what need to do to better complete our construction project on the whole. Second, use informal interview to obtain real customer’s need with regards to communication in the office. Third, set priority according to the importance and urgency of various office automation tasks. This is a matter of resource allocation. Finally, summarize the analysis findings and conclude the result for later recommendation.

With regards to data collection, most of it comes from the information provided to me formally, and informally such as chatting with colleagues during my work in the office. For example, the equipment requirement specifications are a very important source of primary data. The rest includes verbal interview with key decision maker, decision influencers, and computer end-users on the communication need and operation comment in their daily work. That makes sense as to know the e-mail system requirements accurately and detail enough. Each of the parties interviewed might have different input to the matter as they have different concerns based on their position/view in the site office. Also, all of them have experience with e-mail usage at home and office. Main sources of secondary data will be information from IT Web site, software supplier Web site, my own experience of e-mail service support and administration.

We also need to include another important data like the way staff communicates with each other by computer currently into our analysis. Our analysis will not be complete without it. Since it will give us hindsight in the recommended solution and implementation procedure later on.

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Please refer to appendix for interview questionnaires and other data collected for analysis.

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SWOT analysis

Strength Both parent companies of the engineer representative company are established leader in providing technical professional services in the built environment. Bear in mind that these are well-managed companies with long history of success. Therefore, we can count on their support and management skill to ensure the success of the on-going construction project. The main strength of the project is the combined resources of the three clients of the to be constructed container terminal port. The consortium comprises of Asia Container Terminals (ACT), Modern Terminals Limited (MTL) and Hongkong International Terminal (HIT). “They have demonstrated their commitment to Hong Kong and their confidence in the longterm prospect of our container port and economy” (Donald Tsang, Aug 17 1998, p.1). 2 Conversely, if there is no sign of back off from the clients, one will expect them to provide sufficient resource in carry out the project.

Another important strength is our staff quality. We have a team of competent staffs to begin with. Many are well-seasoned professionals in their own area of expertise. Personnel quality is critical to the success of any project.

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Weakness One of the main weaknesses of the project is the unusual low bid won by the main contractor. It results in a very tight budget not only to the contractor, but also to those who manage the development project. So from time to time, we observe that the contractor has tried to delay delivery of equipment to us. Even payment to corresponding suppliers has been delayed as long as possible. In other words, we cannot expect much help or cooperation from the contractor, especially in regards to providing non-specified office equipment in the requirement specifications. It all boils down to money. With little money that the contractor can spend, what follows is kind of expected.

Our second weakness is the limited hardware capacity in the file server of our site office’s intranet. The requested e-mail service definitely needs a computer to host. It has to be stable, running 24 hours non-stop. Plus, it has to have enough capacity to handle the network traffic and data storage. So the best possible candidate is the file server we have. At present, its capacity in memory and storage space is barely adequate for handling the workload and file document storage for the next few years.

HKD Billion

12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Yr Yr Yr Yr Yr

CT9 Development Project Budget

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Other factors we might need to consider are the additional workload in administration, support of the e-mail service. Since there is only one computer administrator in our engineer representative site office, this can be an issue. Besides, we are supposed to be a selfsufficient office. No technical support can be expected to come from our company’s computer service department. Politics is another thing. We have probably heard quite a bit of e-mail problems in the last few years. These range from office gossip, personal chat to overload the e-mail server with tons of garbage e-mails. For sure, there will be more false report of computer problem. All the above factors I have mentioned so far cannot be ignored during the search of solution to the communication problem in study.

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Opportunity We are living in an ever fast-paced technology driven society. There is constant new technology and new product coming out into the market. It means that there is a good chance that we might benefit ourselves by adopting these technologies. For example, we can improve the productivity in our office by improving communication with others through computer. This can be in the form of e-mail service. Electronic mail has come a long way since its first debut. Now it is part of a work collaboration system. Furthermore, learning to use such productivity tool can be seen as a way to boost staff morale. Think of the increase in work performance and added value to the staffs and our office in general, one can vision there are opportunities out there.

Threat The threat to the CT9 project can be divided into two areas. One is the global economic climate and the other comes from the main contractor, HCJV. With the world economy still in the recession stage, there is really no definite foreseeable schedule of recovery. That is probably why the plans for developing container terminal 10 and 11 have been cancelled. Many businesses are being affected by the economy downturn, including our clients and the main contractor. So the clients might be quite reluctant to approve any site instruction to provide extra equipment requested. On the other hand, the finance of the contractor is known not in any good shape either. Its poor cash flow makes them slow down in their work progress. With the expenses on office equipment (includes computer equipment) already over spent, the contractor has every reason not willing to provide us anything further in that category. Also, forget about the chance of obtaining computer technical consultancy from them. Besides it is not part of their job, they do not have proficient computer expertise in supporting our computer system. They do not even have their own designated computer staff in their site office.

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Customer Need

E-mail system is a client/server application system. It requires an e-mail server (hardware and software) to store the e-mail sent and received. At the client side, it requires an e-mail front-end computer program to send, retrieve, and organize e-mail designated for the user from the server. Sure, all these require a computer network to start from. That is what we already have at present. Plus, we only have external e-mail service to communicate with people outside our office.

E-mail is now a very common, convenient and very quick means for sending information to people inside and outside of the company. Almost all of our staffs in the office have experience in the use of computer and e-mail system. E-mails are best for instant messages and quick transfer of data, sometimes followed up by hard copies being sent by post. They also have a distinctive advantage in sending attached files of various formats. However, some organizations are using them more and more in place of letters and normal correspondence. Whether incoming or outgoing, they should conform to the normal documentation registering systems that hard copy correspondence follows.

Though we have external e-mail service in our office, it is not widely accessible to every staff who needs it. Our companies are committed to the concept of Total Quality Management. So customer satisfaction is of high priority to us. Satisfaction implies continual improvement.

Identifying customer needs is very important in this report. In our e-mail service request, it is basically internal customer needs. They also imply external customer needs at the same time. After studying our office operation, our end-user of e-mail simply wants to be able to send

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and receive e-mail. It refers to communicating with company staff using e-mail. To be more precise in our case, what the computer users have asked is to communicate with each other by computer in our site office. Other times, they might need to communicate with other parties like government department, equipment supplier, etc. Basic mail storage management should be available too. Sometimes, the e-mail sent has file attachment. That is an important point we need to consider, because the attached file can be very large in size. It can put a heavy strain on the network traffic and overload the e-mail system. At the end, end-user wants a reliable e-mail system, which is simple enough to the novice.

To the computer administrator, he is also an end-user of e-mail service. To carry out administration work and user support, he sometimes needs to send e-mail to staffs in the office. So with the use of e-mail service, we can lower the support and administration cost of our computer systems. For example, he can communicate with user by computer instead of by telephone or hard copy memo. Lastly, the computer administrator definitely needs to send/receive e-mail with computer supplier from time to time. These may involve correspondence of technical support information, software product registration, etc. Browsing the World Wide Web for product and technology update is again part of his job.

The would be e-mail system should be simple to use and learn both to the end-user and computer administrator. It needs to be easy to install, maintain and reliable in its operation. Otherwise, it will increase the administration and support cost in the workload of the computer service section.

With regards to software licensing, the e-mail server is a software program, which ideally comes with free license. There are some computer software suppliers offering computer programs as freeware. They are different from shareware. Shareware is software licensed to

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end-user with the right to use it under its terms of agreement in return of contributing a very small amount of price. Whereas freeware is software licensed to end-user free of charge. Software suppliers do this for reason of testing a product’s acceptability and for personal interest. Some of these software programs are of very good quality. They might come have future upgrade and limited support from the supplier. As for the customer side, many staffs have responded that they wish to use the Microsoft Outlook Express as the front-end program to send, receive, and manage user’s e-mail by ourselves. This program is part of the workstation operating system. So there is no need to purchase additional software program.

On the hardware requirement side, our every computer workstation has enough processing power and storage space capacity to handle the requested e-mail service. All we need is to train user to housekeep his/her e-mail stored in the workstation. For the e-mail server, the host computer needs to have enough memory and storage space to handle its workload besides whatever other services it is hosting.

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Resource Allocation Analysis

Attractiveness - profit margin, cost requirement, share growth rate Strength - product quality, productivity, costs, managerial personnel, share of importance

Attractiveness ↑ Expedition PP3, AutoCAD, Office Strength ←

Internet Access System Utilities

From the beginning of the setup of the engineer representative site office, a number of computer application programs have been installed. These include integrated document suite (Microsoft Office), computer aided drawing (AutoCAD), project control system (Expedition), project planning system (PP3), and several other system utility programs. All of them are essential to the operation of our office. However, each has its priority in terms of resource allocation attractiveness and strength.

Since the work we are doing is managing a construction development project, it makes sense to have some kind of project control system to facilitate the corresponding tasks. Currently, we use Expedition to handle the project control by controlling the incoming/outgoing documents, and thus all the process of the project. Scott Wilson also uses Expedition to manage its current projects. Perhaps, that is why we were recommended to use it too in our project. One can says that Expedition is a key computer program used in our office. There is a good chance to have more installation in our computer network as more staff comes on board in the next twelve months.

The next important application program is probably the Project Planner 3. From time to time, our project programmer needs to update the project program’s schedule and coordinate the related task items. Every desktop computer is installed with Microsoft Office. We use the 20

programs for our daily document handling. There is not much training and support required for this document suite, as all our staffs have experience with the programs. Like many computer programs, the document suite has fulfilled more than our needs. Also, there is very little chance for any upgrade. The same can applies to the AutoCAD program. Right now, only staffs in the survey section are using it.

The rest of the application programs are system utilities like data backup, anti-virus, etc. They are essential programs to system support, but we do not depend on them to enhance productivity.

Internet access is most likely has a high chance for implementation here. It can greatly enhance our productivity by shortening the time lag in communication, and reduce the use of paper in the office. Nearly all of our office staffs will benefit from the use of e-mail and Web browsing. What needs to be studied is how to implement e-mail service and enhance Internet access in our intranet.

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Analysis Result and Conclusion

From the SWOT analysis, it is true that we do have considerable strength and some opportunities, which we can exploit to improve the productivity in our office. For example, improvement in communication channel might offer a chance for us to promote better staff discipline. While paperless office is not a realistic objective in a project-based office such as ours, the increase use of electronic message service in communication can still reduce the use of papers in our office. To management in the site development office, the threats, which I have mentioned, are beyond our control. Most important is that they do not affect our operation much as far as computer system is concerned.

With respect to e-mail service need, it mainly comes from our internal customers - site office staffs. All they want is an electronic message system, which they can communicate efficiently with people in our site office and other necessary external parties. Browsing the Web is also an essential need. The system should be easy to learn and use. It must also be easy to support and administer without causing much more workload.

Any task requires some kinds of resource. The requested e-mail service is of high value to our office. In other words, it can benefit our daily operation to a large extent. Furthermore, in resource allocation, trend is more important. As our staffs get used to the new service and gain more confidence in its usage, its utilization will increase. So electronic message service might become highly valued, with increase of relative importance among other computer services.

In conclusion, the request under study is an opportunity, which will benefit our operation significantly. It comes from important internal customer needs, and it can be seen as a chance

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to improve our productivity by enabling site staffs to communicate with people through computer and search information on the Web. The costs associated with the requested electronic message service are minimal and still within our capability to fulfil. In terms of growth and future system development, such request should therefore receive a high priority to implement relative to other computer service request.

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Proposed Improvement Plan

On first thought in brainstorming for options to fulfil the user’s request, online chat program is not a likely one by any chance. A chat program allows computer user to talk to each other in real time. It basically allows short messages in exchange of dialogue. I am not saying it is not useful at all, but telephone can take its place quite well. So we can rule it out in our choice of solution.

The second option, which comes into mind, is a bundled electronic message program. It is part of our computer’s operating system, and so there is no extra charge. It will popup a windows screen whenever one receives a new message on one’s computer. Also, you can keep a certain number of read messages. While that sounds great, but again, it is only supposed to handle short message. No file attachment is allowed. One can only send message to a designated computer, not a particular staff. Also, the program cannot allow one to send a message to a group of people.

At the end, a basic electronic mail system looks like the only option, which can possibly fulfill our requirements. I have found a program called ArgoSoft Mail server after some searching over the Internet. The mail server is very simple, and easy to use. It allows you to specify unlimited number of users, and relay the messages to other computers on the Internet. It can be used as a local e-mail system for your small office or home. Its developer provides the basic version to the public with free license. I have downloaded it and gave it a preliminary test. The result appears promising. The program has the following functions and features.

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Functions: -

send and receive e-mail

-

allows file attachment

-

can use shared address book of Microsoft Windows

-

user mail box maintenance

Features: -

can use our existing intranet with no extra hardware/software (low investment cost)

-

notification of new mail arrival

-

option to import user name list from network

-

activity log tracking

This program can satisfies all our end-user’s needs and computer administration requirements. It is an e-mail server, and that is all we need to install in the host computer. At the computer client side, our users can use the installed Outlook Express program as the front-end program to handle their e-mail. So it implies a really short learning curve for the user. Once the address book is built, the administration cost of the e-mail server is relatively simple.

For Web browsing and external e-mail service, all we need is to expand the current Internet access service to allow more staff who has such legitimate use. As a start, we have been provided one modem plugged into our file server. Although no one can tell me why it is there, it looks like the person who wrote the computer equipment requirement specifications, has sharing an Internet connection from the file server in mind from early on. Usually in such situation, people will install external Internet dial-up equipment in order to do so. That

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means more expense, and that is out of the question in our situation. Fortunately, the operating system of our file server is Microsoft Windows 2000, and it comes with the necessary component program, which can serve our purpose. All we need is to set it up and enable management approved computer workstation to access the Internet through the Internet connection at our file server. Users who need to browse the Web or send Internet email can do so at these designated computer workstations. In this case, our file server will act as an Internet gateway. To the users, there is not much of a training cost. They only need to open the Internet Explorer program on their desktop PC, and they are already on the information highway. For Internet e-mail, they can use the installed Outlook Express program to send and receive e-mail as usual.

In terms of cost and benefit, the above-recommended solution fits the parameters. For additional hardware procurement, all we need is to set up another data line by the telecommunication service company. Next is to install more memory in our file server to handle the new e-mail service. This should not be an extra cost to the construction project, because it is still within the boundary of the equipment requirement specifications. For additional software procurement, all we need is to download the free license version of the email server from the software developer’s Web site. The client software we need is already present and installed in all our desktop computers. The rest of the setup procedure is set up the system so that our staffs can start using the new services. Sure, the monthly Internet connection charge to the contractor will increase, but again that is part of the prearranged contract. So it still will not incur extra cost to the engineering representative consultant company. The rest of the costs are administration and support cost. Based on the nature of the new services and the solution which we choose, such extra workload is minimal and will not likely to overload our human resources capacity.

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If we look at the benefits that might come from the implementation of the new services, there are plenty. First of all is efficiency. For sending e-mail, there is no need to go to one specific desktop computer to do so. Several other designated computers can be arranged to enable such task. For receiving e-mail, staffs can use their Web-based e-mail address for informal correspondence. This helps significantly for external communication. It all boils down to the fact that we will then have more computers in our intranet, which allow external e-mail service. As for internal e-mail, communicating with other staff through computers in the site office will be much easier than before. Since there will be an e-mail address book available to all computers in our intranet, sending e-mail to a staff or a group of staffs will just be a few clicks away. Also, browsing the Web for information search will be more convenient than before because there will be more Internet enabled computers available to our staffs. This will save us tremendous effort in obtaining the same information through traditional methods like mail or facsimile.

Increase in customer’s responsiveness is another benefit. E-mail is more suitable for fast communication with detail information contained. Also, it can be sent to a number of recipients directly at the same time. This is a feature which facsimile service does not have. Another point is that it is more likely one cannot dial through a facsimile number than one cannot receive an e-mail successfully. Nowadays, Internet access is almost ubiquitous in many developed countries, such that e-mail service has become a modern living necessity like the telephone service. Also, e-mail service can be nearly as responsive as telephone service, and it does not require the user to response right away. For example, if several emails arrive, they will be handled smoothly and put in one’s mailbox for later reading. Whereas in telephone service, one needs to put people on hold, or ask the caller to leave a message when the line is busy. Some people do not like to leave a message over the phone at all, and would rather call back later.

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After all, the strength of our company is its coercive power to push the construction development project forward. So it is quite possible for us to obtain the computer hardware required from the contractor. Having the new Internet services will tend to beef up the computer skill of our staffs, and hence will increase the productivity in the office. One can also view this as a chance to rectify the inadequacy of our computer facilities.

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Implementation and Control

Implementation of new services means implementation of changes. They refer to changes in operation process and staff behavior in this case. Successful project requires good planning as well as good implementation. Afterwards, we need control mechanism to ensure the ongoing success of the completed changes.

Implementation: -

Install a new data line for Internet connection from the file server

-

Set up the Internet connection gateway at the file server using the bundled computer program of the Windows server operating system

-

Install another 256 MB of memory in our file server

-

Install the e-mail server and test it on a limited number of client workstations

-

Prepare a shared e-mail address book. We will store it in the General Office network folder so that all users can read. Clerical Officer of the General Office section will be responsible for maintaining the address book.

-

Design administration task of e-mail server

-

Announce to all computer users of the coming services by memorandum. Emphasize on the benefits of these services.

-

Provide training to users on the new e-mail system. It will be in the form of written operation guide.

-

Evaluate user training

-

Set up guideline in e-mail system usage (refer to company’s rules and regulations)

-

Fully implement the system

Control:

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-

Monitor e-mail activities

-

Monitor system performance (compare before and after implementation)

-

Review user feedback to see if the system works as expected

-

Review functional and individual performance goal periodically o Functional goal 

Less than 15 seconds in Web page display on average



Less than one Internet disconnection a month



No e-mail and Web browsing request needs to be waited

o Individual goal 

Less occurrence of missing receive of message

Change is a fact of life especially in today’s fast pace workplace. Change can overcome current problem but it can also bring new one. Therefore, we might find further refine need and improvement of the new Internet services after the system has run for a certain time. After all, the request for improvement in communication of our office should be part of a continual process to improve productivity.

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Conclusion

Communication is very important in today’s business world. This cannot be more true in a project-based office such as ours. The parent companies of the CT9 joint venture engineering company have always prided themselves as well managed organizations. They are certainly not going to neglect communication in their operation. In fact, providing an Internet e-mail account is a sign that indicates so. Plus, the room for elaboration and implementation of the e-mail system in the project’s equipment requirement specifications give us lenience to develop the communication system customized to our needs. I am confident there will not be any objection from the clients and the management of our parent companies with regard to the implementation of the said communication services.

Based on the management and financial strengths and weaknesses of our company, we should take on available opportunity to improve our productivity. E-mail and Web browsing service are considered a must in today’s work environment. Cost savings and increased productivity are the main benefits that come with digital workflow and knowledge management. The site development project is planned to last for five years, and so it is long enough to justify the existence of these communication services. Since we are at the beginning stage of the project, it is an appropriate time to set up these basic services now than later. Promptness to act is important in a construction development project. It will be odd and less probable to fulfill the required services if they are raised after two years since the start of the project. The year ahead remains challenging. The progress of the project will likely to speed up, and the work quality will improve with the successful implementation of the intranet and Internet services outlined in this report.

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Appendix

1. Brief organization structure of the CT9 Development Project

C lie n t P r o je c t M a n a g e m e n t O f f ic e r E n g in e e r R e p r e s e n t a t iv e SW M

M a in C o n t r a c t o r H C JV

S u b c o n tr a c to r s

S u p p lie r s

2. End-user survey questionnaires a) What parties do you communicate with electronically? b) How many are site office staffs? c) How many are off site people? d) How often do you use communicate with them electronically? e) What is your average number of e-mail sent and received daily? f) What Internet Web sites do you visit for your work? How often do you do so? g) What functions do you expect the e-mail service will provide?

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3. Architecture of a typical e-mail system (client/server)

Internet HUB

E-mail server

E-mail clients

4. List of software installed in our office License Installed Computer Program Language d Copy Copy Remark Adobe Acrobat 4 English 41 41 OEM Freeware ARCserve 2000 English 1 1 With Backup Agent for Open Files AutoCAD 2000 English 2 2 Ms Office 2000 Premium English 22 22 22 Open user license of Ms Office XP Professional were purchased Ms Office 2000 Small Office English 18 18 Ms Office 2000 Step-by-Step English 3 0 Third party reference material Ms Win 98 2nd Ed. English 40 40 Ver 4.10.2222A, Preinstalled. Ms Windows 2000 Server English 1 1 40 CAL Norton AntiVirus English 41 41 Ver 5.01.05, OEM Freeware PC Doctor English 40 40 OEM Freeware Primavera Expedition English 15 16 Ver 7.0 Primavera Project Planner English 2 2 Ver 3.0 Volo Viewer Express English 1 10 Freeware WinZip 7 English 40 40 OEM Freeware

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References

1. Mrs. Carrie Yau (May, 2001). Digital 21 Strategy. Hong Kong: Information Technology and Broadcasting Bureau, p.7. 2. Donald Tsang. (Aug 17, 1998). Agreement reached on development of container terminal 9. Hong Kong: daily news, p.1.

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