To ensure success of this project several steps will be takin to manage the three most common causes of project failure: cost, time management, and project management. The first is to create a budget in an effort to control cost. The second is to create a schedule, and define milestones to track the progress of the project. A budget and a schedule are helpful tools that will help in the management of the project.

5a: Proposed Budget and Funding Source
    
    The primary and only funding source is me, and being that I am the soul source of funding I am going to try to keep the budget low. The benchmark for the budget is $300, which is the estimate I was given for the project last year. I would like to cut that by 25% and have a maximum budget of 225.00$. An estimated cost list (Table 3 Early parts list and estimate on budget.) was created during the process of creating a parts list. A more accurate budget (in Table 4 Budget) details cost and suppliers for the project, and to this point is just over 210$ and ideally it will decrease. Cost will play a large role in design decision and will likely change as the project evolves.

5b: Suppliers and Part/Material Acquisition:

    A significant amount of material is available from last year’s project and will be used for the large or structural components, such as chassis pan, steering knuckles, hub carriers, steering linkage, and fasteners. These Material will require machining or some type of shaping that will take place in the CWU machine shop. Some of the parts will also be printed from the CWU rapid prototyping lab. I will be doing the work myself, therefore I will not be charging myself for the work, though I will record my hours in the shop.
Parts that will not be manufactured at CWU will be ordered online. Parts and fasteners will be purchased from different merchants, through Amazon.com. Purchasing through one website will simplify ordering, and amazon.com has good return policies as well as competitive pricing. 

5d: Labor

    Assembly and any necessary modifications or addition machining of parts will be completed by me, in the available shops in the Hogue technology building. As briefly discussed in the prior section I will not be charging myself for any of the time spent working on the project. Predicting the time it will take to machine, and print the parts will be difficult as the machine shop is very busy during winter quarter, especially this year considering the size of our class.
Some parts will be machined out of 1/4” 1023 carbon steel plate. The material is available for free, but the machining I will have to complete. Budget will be updated upon information availability.

5e: Estimate total project cost

The current estimated cost of this project is 140.44$ (Table 4 Budget). This is below the proposed budget of 225.00$. Price is a large factor in determining design for this project, and as design continues the predicted budget should decrease. This estimate is optimistic, but if the A-arms and supports can be machined for free then cost will dramatically decrease.

I.    Gantt Charts

Gant Charts will be used to schedule different aspects of the project. Gant charts are useful tools for this type of project because a task, a description of the task, estimated timeline, and date of completion can all be displayed on a single graph. This project will span the months of Sept 2015- June 2016, so a week will be the standard resolution for the charts. The schedules for quarters fall, winter (detailed winter schedule includes manufacturer tasks), and spring are in Appendix E -- Schedule: Figure 9, Figure 10, respectively. A schedule of the entire project is also in Figure 13.  

II.    Milestones

Milestones are a good way of marking project progression. The publication of the website for this project and the approval of the subject were the first two milestones for this project. The next milestones are sections of the proposal and the final completed proposal. The next milestones are completed sub-assemblies for both the steering and suspension systems, followed by a completed assembly. Once assembly is complete the final milestones are the completion itself and the completed turned in project (Appendix E Schedule Figure 34 Milestone Schedule).

III.    Estimate Total Project Time 
 
The current estimated project time is 215 hours (Figure 35 Full Year Schedule). This is a low approximation. As to this point in the project every task has taken longer than anticipated, and it is expected that the trend will continue. To mitigate the under approximations both predicted times and actual times to complete tasks will be recorded, and reflect changes in task completion predictions.

5G: Project Management

I.    Human Resources: 

I am the primary human resource. My partner Jason Moore who is going to be producing and designing the drive train elements of the vehicle will also be a primary resource. Professor Pringle, Professor Beardsley, and Professor Johnson will be valuable resources for advice on design, analysis, and numerous other questions regarding the development of the project. Other human resources that are more related to the manufacture of the vehicle are Matt B. and Ted Bramble. Another valuable resource has been Nathan Wilhelm, who did this project last year. Nathan has been a valuable resource for advice and in donating his extra parts/drawings that will be used for this project.

II.    Physical Resources/Soft Resources: 

The physical resources that will be used to complete this project include: the machine shop and rapid prototyping lab. The machine shop is equipped with numerous lathes, mills (horizontal and vertical), and CNC machines that will be used to fabricate and modify parts. The rapid prototyping lab has Computers with Solidworks, and CADD software for modeling parts and drawings, as well as fabricate parts via the 3-d printer.