Business Considerations - Fundamentals of Industrial Chemistry: Pharmaceuticals, Polymers, and Business - page 71

give a better sense of the interdependencies of the various tasks. However,
Gantt charts are easy to understand and at a glance everyone can quickly
understand how a project is progressing versus the schedule. They tell when
tasks begin and end, how long they are expected to take, and what tasks
overlap. They also give this in the context of the overall project.
Imagine a project that needs to move from early conception through
laboratory work, scale-up and ultimately shipping product to the customer.
This involves several functions within the organization and it is paramount
that they each understand their role and how the project is progressing. The
required tasks can be listed with some estimate of time needed to complete
each one. This is represented in the table (Figure 6.1) and then as a Gantt
chart (Figure 6.2).
It is easy for the pilot plant to look at the Gantt chart and realize that if
the route optimization is delayed then they may have a late start. They either
need to make up the time by perhaps doing their work in 14 days rather
than the planned 28 or risk delaying the order for needed equipment for the
manufacturing scale up. However, if they can give an early answer to the
decision as to what equipment is needed, the other pilot plant work can be
done somewhat later without impacting the overall timeline.

6.6 COST ESTIMATES

Projects need to be profitable. Profit is revenue less costs. The judgment
of whether to proceed with a project should involve some consideration
of profitability. Revenue projections can come from market studies and
estimates of how much can be sold at what price. The other piece of the

Task Start date Duration End date

Patent and literature review 1/7/2013 7 1/14/2013

Laboratory experiments 1/14/2013 21 2/4/2013

Finalize synthetic route 2/4/2013 2 2/6/2013

Optimize route 2/6/2013 21 2/27/2013

Pilot plant work 2/20/2013 28 3/20/2013

Order manufacturing equipment 3/20/2013 3 3/23/2013

Manufacturing scale-up 4/20/2013 14 5/4/2013

Ship to customer 6/1/2013 4 6/5/2013

Figure 6.1 Timetable of Required Tasks.