Development of a Standard Master Schedule in support of Dana electrification programs.

Planning is the key activity in projects. It provides an overview of what needs to be done to achieve the objectives and monitors the execution of activities to ensure that key milestones are met. Dana develops transmission systems that are sometimes customized according to customer requirements, so planning always takes on a project-specific character. However, the work packages include activities that are common to all developments, and as a result a 'standard' planning can be obtained whose backbone are the common activities and whose ribs are variable activities depending on the project in question. The first objective of the thesis is to create a 'Standard Master Schedule' that groups all project activities, basic and variable, and sequences and schedules them in a risk-free scenario. The result of the schedule shows how much time would be required to develop and industrialize an electrified application in Dana, and together with the analysis of the Customers' Time To Market requirements, this leads to the need for a slimmer and more efficient schedule. In fact, the second objective of the thesis is to carry out optimizations on the activities defined by the standard planning so as to align the Dana MRDs with those of the Client and become more competitive in the market. The inevitable trade-off of optimization is an increase in project risks. Risks generated by tight schedules and the parallelization of certain activities that required breaking the links of the critical path. The optimized planning is supported by risk assessment and the identification of preventive or mitigating actions that lower the risk level of the project.