Finance:
These person/persons had to make sure that there was enough money in the companies account to cover all outgoing expenses. The person in charge of finance had to make sure that an account was setup in the name of the business and that each member of the group had contributed towards the registration fee.
Personnel:
The people involved in personnel were in charge of making sure that regular meetings had been set up and that each member of the group knew about them. They also had to make sure they had collected all the appropriate data; for example, they had to check if they had all the details relating to members; everyone’s contact numbers, addresses, email addresses. Etc.
Sales:
These people had to ensure there was enough stock to sell, as we could not afford to turn away customers due to lack of supply. They also had to make sure that the products were displayed /arranged in a way which they would be quite noticeable and catch customers attentions. The sales people also had to make sure they looked friendly and approachable so not to intimidate potential customers. Sales people had to make sure they knew enough about the product to explain to people exactly what the product was, why they designed it and what purpose it served, they also had to be persuasive therefore the sales people needed to have excellent people skills in order to deal with customers effectively.
IT:
Siam, Toba, Daniel, and Divan were in charge of IT. They had to ensure that our company was registered and that any events or trade fairs we wished to attend had been booked. IT also designed leaflets and flyers advertising when we would be selling, for example they made the posters for the cake sale and the valentine’s sale, and they designed the company logo and helped produce posters to put on the display board.
5. Resources.
What materials do you need, and in what quantities.
We needed to make sure we had everything needed in order to start producing bags.
- 100 plain brown canvas bags
- 20 plain red canvas bags.
Who is your supplier and how will you get their supplies?
When we first decided on the idea to produce bags the art teacher who helped us produce them told us she knew a bag supplier and showed us a leaflet of all the different types/sizes of bags they supplied. After we had decided on the type and size of the bag we contacted the supplier and placed an order. We wanted to order two colours so we could experiment on whether the silk-screening would show on a coloured material. The bags were then delivered to our school a few weeks later.
What tools and equipment will you need?
In order to produce the bags we needed stuff like:
- Silk screens
- Silk paints (in various colours)
- Spatulas
- Scrapers
- Paintbrushes
- Templates/ stencils of designs/ patterns we wanted to print.
- Scrap newspaper /paper (used as stuffing)
We also needed to make sure we had enough people in production making the bags.
6. Cost
What is the price of your raw materials? – Make a shopping list.
The materials which we needed consisted of:
- Bags
- Silk paint to print designs
The cost of the bags was about £1 per bag. We ordered around 120 bags of which 100 were a natural brown colour and 20 were red. The colour of the paints used to print the designs was £1 per colour, we used seven colours.
There were no other expenses which needed to be paid such as wages, electricity because all production was made in school in the art department. Wages weren’t an issue at this point because the group had decided that after the project had finished all the profit made would be split evenly between each member so that everyone received an equal amount of money.
7. Marketing
Who will buy your product or service?
The reason Triple X chose to produce silk screened bags was because the company agreed that they would target and audience who would be most likely to spend money, the research undertaken and statistics found showed that women were more likely to spend money than men so therefore we decided to aim our product at women.
How will you find out what customers want?
After deciding on our target group we needed to find a product, which would attract our target group and appeal to them in order for us to make a profit. We decided on the idea of selling bags, the bags would have unique and stylish patterns printed onto them to make them more eye catching by using a silk screening process.
Where will you sell your product or service?
The bags/products will be sold at all major school events, for example, parents evenings, school plays, etc. It will also be sold at upcoming YE trade fairs and other events at which we are eligible to sell at.
How will you advertise your product or service?
Our products were advertised using posters and leaflets and also by word of mouth. We also produced a display board containing information on our company such as;
- When it was started.
- Why it was started.
- How it was started.
- Who was in charge of what?
- Our aims and objectives/goals.
The display board also showed pictures of us working together, producing the bags and also held samples of some of the bags made; it also had diagrams of how we wanted the bags to look when we were at the planning stage.
8. Designing and Making.
What are the main steps involved in making your product/providing your service?
In the process of making our product we needed to make sure that we had everything needed to produce the bags. The art teacher helping us knew exactly when we wanted to make them. We also had to give her 24 hour notice in order for her to able to get everything ready in order for us to begin silk screening. All the screens needed to print the bags had to be treated before hand; we also had to make sure that all the colours we wanted to use were available.
After we had made sure we had everything needed we had to begin printing, we had to decide on what colour would be put on which bag, as we had ordered two different coloured bags, natural and red. The natural coloured one could be printed with any colour as it would go with any, but the red would have to be matched with complimenting colours.
Firstly we had to order the amount of bags we needed in the colours we wanted.
Secondly we had to decide on the patterns we wanted to print; we then had to make stencils out of them by cutting them down to size in order for them to fit over the bags perfectly
Thirdly we had to decide on what colour to use on the bags, we needed colours that would stand out, it was easy to put any colour onto the brown because they all looked bold but the red bags were much harder to find complimentary colours for.
Finally we had to make sure that everything was in order and then we printed the patterns onto the bags and let them dry.
Who will be involved?
In the making of the bags everyone in production was involved; we also had the help of our Art teacher Ms Maye, during the last few sessions of production everyone involved in the company ended up helping out making the bags.
How will you ensure the quality of your product/service?
Each bag is printed individually and because of this all bags are printed to perfection, the stencils used are replaced whenever needed to ensure the quality of the bags remain the same. The first few bags we printed hadn’t come out right, there were small patches where the paint hadn’t come through, and this was fixed by someone filling in the patches with paint.
What quality control measures will you introduce?
In order to ensure all products produced were done to a level of certain standard we made sure there were enough people willing to help in production so that if 1 member got bored/tired of making the bags another member would be waiting to take over. This measure would make sure that the bags were all produced with equal effort.
Task 2
Part A
In order to raise finance for our company the activities we undertook included:
- Having a cake sale.
- Holding a play station games tournament.
- Selling gifts during the valentine day period.
The cake sale was the first fund raising activity we did, each member of the group/company was asked to bring in a cake or any other form of confectionary which would be sold at break times to the students.
The problems which arose were that there were a lot of people who were unwilling to help sell the cakes because it meant them giving up their break times, this resulted in having the same several people sell the cakes at both break and lunch which seemed unfair as they had to lose both breaks. The total amount of money made was around £43.00.
The play station games tournament was then done several weeks after the cake sale and managed to raise £10.00, basically a member of the group volunteered to bring his games console in along with one of the latest football games he then challenged students to a competition to see if they could win against him. If the students won they would get back double of what they paid to participate. The problems with this activity was that if the students won the game we would be making a loss as we would have to pay out double what we were given.
The Valentines Day sale was probably the most successful fund raising activity, we also got a chance to trial our product this way. Valentines gifts such as teddy bears, roses and other sentimental gifts were sold as well as a few samples of our bags; we had a selection of the red canvas bags with design and patterns on them relating to valentines. These bags were filled with a teddy bear and a rose, each of the bags were sold quite quickly this showed that the bags were going to be a good idea. The total amount of money made from the valentine’s sale was £00.00. The only problem with the valentines sale was that there were several items left over which couldn’t be sold again as they were designed specifically for Valentines Day.
Part B
When trialling our products we basically just experimented with which colours would look good on both coloured bags, we then decided what patterns/designs would work well with the colours. When trialling the patterns we found a few which wouldn’t print out the way we wanted onto the bags, so we decided to not go ahead with them. This caused a few disputes as some members felt that if given a bit of adjustment they would come out perfectly, this was considered too time consuming and was disregarded.
Everything involved with trialling worked out quite well there were hardly any problems, almost everything went according to plan. The only other main problems we had were that there was not enough coloured ink and that certain colours which we wanted weren’t available.
Part C
Our objectives were to produce silk screened canvas bags and make a profit and cover company expenses.
By trialling our products we discovered that we would make enough to cover our company expenses but probably not enough to make a reasonable profit.
Part D
What lessons have you learnt from the trial and what changes have you had to make?
We learnt that working as a team was valuable as it meant that everything got done quicker and more efficiently, we learnt that in order for us to be successful we needed the participation of everyone within the group. One person could not be expected to do everything which is exactly what happened. The company was not being managed/ handled as well as it should have been so we decided to get rid of the managing director and replace her with the two administration staff. The change we made proved to be quite successful because the new managing directors managed to get everything under control and took charge effectively, they made sure everything was running smoothly and according to plan, timetables had been drawn up to indicate us of when we needed to move ahead and start another part of our project.
Task 3
Your project will need to be monitored to check if you are achieving objectives. You will need to include how your project was monitored.
We monitored our project by trying to stick to the timetable which had been produced outlining when each stage of the project needed to begin and end. We held regular meetings and kept agendas to make sure we were on track and we knew exactly what was going on.
Gantt charts:
Gantt charts are useful tools for planning and scheduling projects.
- Gantt charts allow you to assess how long a project should take.
- Gantt charts lay out the order in which tasks need to be carried out.
- Gantt charts help manage the dependencies between tasks.
- Gantt charts determine the resources needed.
Gantt charts are also useful tools when a project is under way.
- Gantt charts monitor progress. You can immediately see what should have been achieved at a certain point in time.
- Gantt charts allow you to see how improvements may bring the project back on course.
Task 4
Identify the critical paths in your project. Show that you can make use of appropriate network techniques to monitor project development effectively.
Task 5
We didn’t have a contingency plan as we hadn’t realised we needed one. But if we had decided to make one I think it would’ve been quite beneficial and helped us get things done quicker as there were quite a few unforeseen events which took place that could’ve been handled better if planned for.
For example, when we decided to replace our managing director we hadn’t realised or thought that we would’ve needed to. If we had planned and had chosen a deputy managing director then we wouldn’t have needed to spend so much time finding replacement.
