Part II of II: PROJECT SCHEDULE and Design Activities

Save you hours of confusion frustration and useless works.

Cut the chase. Get your Gantt chart Guide HERE: https://mrdanielsos.gumroad.com/l/ruzqio

The Project Schedule Gantt Chart that you will produce for the GCE 'N' or 'O' level is a typical gantt chart with the top row dedicated for 'Planned' timing (see the Shaded portion) and the bottom row (colored brown) for the record of your 'Actual' progress with respect to each design activity.

The activities on the left hand column is a typical design process flow. It is up to the individual to include more detailed activities within each one or to leave them as a broad heading.

An example closer to the beginning of the project process would be 'Identifying of Design Opportunities'. The activities of identifying a design opportunity can be divided into various sub-activities starting from perhaps an initial attempt at making a few assumptions of typical problems that people face in the park, followed by a scheduled trip to the park for observational studies or photo taking for evidence and study, then crafting of Survey Questions, then Survey, etc.

Under Working Drawings you will find sub-tasks such as Isometric Drawings, an Orthographic Projections, Material List, etc. It is optional that you want to include those sub-lists in your schedule. Otherwise a broad heading Working Drawings might be sufficient.

Whatever it is, the planner must know the Design Process well and understand the various activities and tasks associated with everyone of them.

Note: The numbers (n) bracketed in red represents a typical time frame (in terms of weeks) a student would need for a particular activity.

1. (1-2)   Research and Exploration of the Theme

2. (2-3)   Identify Design Needs & Opportunities

3.            Confirm Identified Design Need & Opportunity

4. (< 1)   Design Brief 

5. (2-3)   Design Considerations and Constraints (or Limitations)

6.             Design Specifications

7. (2-3)   Ideas Generation 
                Includes modeling / Testing / Evaluation / Improvement 

8. (2-3)   Idea Refinement & Development
                Includes Prototyping / Testing / Evaluation / Improvement 

9. (2-3)    Working Drawings
                 Isometric Drawings and all parts labelled
                 Material List 
                 Part Lists and Dimensions
                 Orthographic Projection and Dimensions
                 Assembly Drawings (or Exploded Views)
                 Sectional Views 

10.           Presentaion Drawing (Tips on presentation drawings here).
11.           Production Planning Gantt Chart (for realization. See Gantt Chart)

12. (2-3)  Presentation Boards (3 x A2 boards: Tips on presentation boards here)

13. (2-3)  Realization (that means the actual fabrication of your proposed project product                              solution)
 14.           Evaluation & Improvements (Evaluation against your set of Design Specifications)

Note: Presentation Drawing & Production Planning (Steps 10 & 11) and Presentation Boards & Realization (Step 12 & 13) can be done concurrently. Because all necessary works would have been completed on stand-by to be transferred to the Presentation Boards.

Activities can and should overlap each other.

(i.e. the next activity can *begin about a week or so before the previous activity ends)

* note: it is not necessarily that all activities have the same overlapping time frame or that they can only start after completing the previous one.

Note: 

Activity 14: Evaluation is throughout the entire design process similar to Research.

Finally, strive to plan your schedule and project completion within 20 weeks. i.e. Before the June holidays begin.

For Part 1 that explains the general process of both Project Schedule and Production Schedule, click HERE.

An example of a suggested timeline can be found below: