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Obstacles while working on a project

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(@jpg32)
Posts: 29
Eminent Member
 

I actually just ran into an obstacle recently, roughly 2 months ago. My team and I are working on a project to create products per the new ISO 80369 regulations and we're experiencing forces on our products that are 4x higher than the legacy bore connector designs (Luer). Because of this we could not test them using the test methods we previously used for Luer. ISO dictates specific forces and rates but luckily are pretty vague on how you accomplish that. But unluckily, we had to redesign all the test fixtures, and adjust all the test conditions. This caused a massive delay in the project. Originally the project was rescheduled, due to other obstacles (tackling molding issues), to close end of August, and got pushed to end of September. For this specific obstacle, I actually don't think anything could have prevented it. The FEA conducted prior to me joining the project showed that the forces would be roughly the same as Luer, regardless if MMC, nominal or LMC conditions. No one expected it to produce forces we saw. I personally don't know how the FEA was ran and it could actually have been an error in it seeing as the forces from physical testing had a wide range. The only solution we currently have is to just put all hands on deck to get the project closed as soon as we can.

 
Posted : 12/09/2018 5:54 pm
(@jjp93)
Posts: 79
Trusted Member
 

During my time at Rutgers, I was in a group for my senior design project and we had come up with a rough schedule for when to meet, how to go about the design we were given, what each person would be doing, and the costs of the parts. What we didn’t account for was the vacation days and our respective exam dates that would come in the way of our schedule. We were able to redesign the project that was given to us and use the parts that were already given but we also ran into a problem where we needed new parts which would set back our schedule as well. The first semester working on this project was more difficult because of the schedule that was not properly made but during the second semester, we made a stricter schedule with weekly meetings and accounted for our exam schedules and vacation days. We had finally got our parts and used our improved design to have a functioning project at the end of the year.

Not accounting for how long parts take to come in and not keeping a better schedule with important dates could have resulted in not reaching our deadline but by fixing our mistakes the semester after, we were able to create a better Gantt and account for everything to meet every deadline. My group should have focused more on the planning phase and created a Gantt chart from the beginning to account for any setbacks that could have occurred. If we spent more time during the planning phase, all the other phases would have went more smoothly. We made sure to have a stricter schedule with weekly meetings and communicated with each other when we were having a difficulties with our respective parts of the project. This helped to keep our project on track to present at the end of the second semester.

 
Posted : 14/09/2018 3:50 am
 hzy2
(@hzy2)
Posts: 39
Eminent Member
 

When working on our senior design project, my teammates and I ran into a couple of unexpected obstacles. We were trying to procure the materials we needed to start developing our product and found out that the company we ordered from wouldn't be sending them out on time. This resulted in delays in every single step that followed the procurement stage. This was something we should have taken into account in the planning phase. We should have come up with a list of backup vendors in case we ran into this problem. Poor planning led to a lot of unnecessary stress.

 
Posted : 15/09/2018 12:21 pm
(@aja38)
Posts: 77
Trusted Member
 

The obstacle that my group and I ran into our capstone project was in the fabrication of our product because we had to electrospin our solutions. One of our component was able to electrospin but the other unfortunately, was not able to. This delayed us because our product consist of the two component. As we saw the deadline was approaching, we had to go to plan b, which was making a film out of the second component but it still did not work that the last option was to buy an electronspun mat from an outside source. Every project no matter how prepared the person is will run into obstacles because saying what you will do is easy but doing it is completely different. Many things can prevent you from constructing your design project.

 
Posted : 15/09/2018 5:16 pm
(@mem42)
Posts: 40
Eminent Member
 

The obstacle I encountered was being able to meet with SME's. My internship project had tight deadlines and it required the involvement of multiple teams. Therefore, I had to meet with SME's across the globe, so when scheduling meetings, there were other factors to consider such as different time zone, work schedules, holidays, etc. This was somewhat difficult because people were often traveling, or unavailable to meet. However, I often asked for the desired information through email (even though it took longer), or ask to be directed to another person who could help me gather the information I needed.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 7:50 am
(@ap499)
Posts: 72
Trusted Member
 

While working on a project, there was not one but many obstacles that I and my team have encountered. One of my undergrad project required items that can only be delivered by a company from China. From the starting point, we knew this will take a long delivery time, therefore, our schedule was organized based on it. In the meanwhile, we accomplished tasks that didn’t require any waiting period. One of the obstacles that we encountered was an item that supposes to be delivered on a scheduled date was instead delivered late than the scheduled time which pushed back our whole project. Due to this, other obstacles came along which is failing the test and re-testing in less time. I think planning needs to be more organized when it comes to international delivery because you cannot expect for no mistake, there's always going to be an unexpected error to occur.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 12:19 pm
(@devarshi-joshi)
Posts: 68
Trusted Member
 

According me any project would commonly face any obstacle because of some of these reasons:1) Poorly defined goals, for this you need to use a planning software for making goals more clear. 2)Unrealistic deadlines, for this you need to consider many factors before making deadlines and have proper communication. 3)Scope Creep, for this you need good understanding of customer needs. 4)Insufficient team skills, for this document the core skills needed and train the team accordingly. 5)Risk Management, for this you need to predict every potential risk with strategic planning. 6)NOt using Project Management software, keep information under one roof. 7) internal issues in team, for this you need to do some team building activities among them.

So, according to me the planning and executing phase is the most important phase.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 1:59 pm
 za84
(@za84njit-edu)
Posts: 76
Trusted Member
 

Many obstacles would encounter any group project. For me, I experienced a group noncooperation issue in which some group members were ignoring their assigned tasks and depending on the other members to do them. This was really frustrating for me as a group leader, because I was restricted by due dates which I can't miss. My project manager required a monthly task sheet with a list of our group and everyone's achievement. That was really frustrating for me because some members filled their names and paired them with a task that someone else did. This carelessness was really frustrating, not because we missed the deadline, but because we could've done better by the deadline and achieved more goals if we were collaborating with each other. That was in the execution phase, in which we were in the process of developing and testing our new method and device. The good thing was that those irresponsible members were recognized in the end by our manager when he was asking some basic questions. I tried my best to work harder and stay for extra time just to overcome what happened and it worked out and I was able to keep our project on the right track.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 2:19 pm
(@karen-immanuel)
Posts: 38
Eminent Member
 

I was once working with a team on a project that aimed to create a communication or "chatting" app between a phone and a smartwatch. So one person can directly send a message to another person's smartwatch. We thought this was possible but when we came to the stage of developing it, we figured out that the smartwatch is not able to function as an independent device and talk to the servers to receive messages on it's own. This meant that we had to figure out a different route and we had to do it fast because our deadline was approaching. This huge dilemma was caused by poor planning. I think planning is one of the most important piece of the project because it tells us mainly how we are going to do things. Our team knew what we wanted but we didn't go through the details on how to do it. Then again, because of this set back, I wouldn't suggest fully detailing or specifying every step and move of the project because things change and plans must be flexible. The only way we got through our issue is by finding another way out. But if in the planning stages we looked through the steps with more diligence, we wouldn't have lost the time in figuring out how to come back when we encountered the issue.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 2:25 pm
(@ala26)
Posts: 76
Trusted Member
 

One of the projects I worked on was to create an on-site document to manage our special processes, casting, hot isostatic pressing and solution annealing. This involved closely working with a statistics expert in Warsaw. One of the biggest obstacles that prevented us from closing it on time was proper communication. Our meetings were disorganized and not planned accordingly. In order to close the CAPA we needed to work with upper management and a team from Warsaw as well. There was a lack of communication between everyone that we ended up extending the CAPA deadline. In this case, to overcome the obstacle we needed everyone to work together. We needed one person to lead the team and be aggressive on making sure everyone is updated or contributes what they are suppose too.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 3:12 pm
 Fp55
(@fp55)
Posts: 39
Eminent Member
 

While working on my senior project we took care to avoid and setbacks. We were careful to order our materials ahead of time. We actually ordered 6 weeks early, which was three times the estimated delivery time. Still, our key material, a film former, was cancelled last minute. Luckily we were able to receive a very generously sized sample from a nearby distributer.
When it came to design, we had two to three back up options for each phase of the manufacturing process. This was to ensure that our final product would meet all of the customer requirements. For our presentations, we practiced together until we felt comfortable with our parts and didn't need to refer to our note cards. Still, while practicing we realized that we tended to talk faster then we should even when we tried not to. There were many things like that, and we couldn't always have a solution for every issue. Even with all the precautionary steps we took we ran into many problems. That is why it is so important to allot extra time for every step, because something will always go wrong.

 
Posted : 16/09/2018 7:45 pm
 vcf3
(@vcf3)
Posts: 109
Estimable Member
 

One project in which I encountered crucial setbacks was my capstone project assigned to a group of five. We had a year to submit and present our findings. Although we did have an elaborate planning, almost nobody followed through. Communication became extremely difficult as no one reported the progress of their work. On our mid-project meeting, we realized we were way behind and needed to make some adjustments really fast. After that meeting and noticing how miserably we were failing, I think everyone began to be serious and actually started to work. We pretty much did a year- worth of work in six months, and the process was highly exhausting. Looking back, I should have been more assertive, taken charge and led the group. I believe being a leader is strongly advised when conducting a project. it will get the job done, not only efficiently but fast too.

 
Posted : 12/10/2018 7:03 pm
(@gokulravichandran)
Posts: 81
Trusted Member
 

The obstacles could be of any form like miscommunication, poorly defined goals, insufficient team skills, scope creep etc. While working on a project, set the project objectives in a concerned manner and form a team where you could cooperate and manage sorting issues. While selecting the team members, make sure everyone participates efficiently and equally. The other important one is to work within the consigned time frame, as projects need to be submitted in specified time limit.

During my undergrad, the project that we were doing was based on CST software. But we were not familiarized before. Hence we felt little difficult in completing the project within the consigned time. So before starting a project, get knowledge in your software a bit.

 
Posted : 13/09/2019 4:20 pm
(@mmejia91)
Posts: 40
Eminent Member
 

During our planning stage my team realized part of our existing equipment was not generating reliable data. A customer service engineer was able to locate an error in the software and while 2/4 components ended up rectifying, the rest of the equipment was left off our experimental protocol and ignored. In order to accommodate equipment that was working at only 50% capacity, our protocol had to be changed to have the capacity for more experimental trials that were necessary to compensate for the faulty equipment. Therefore, some of our experiments required twice or thrice as many trials as was originally considered. This resulted in more time spent on experiments, and thus more energy consumed by the research subjects. This, while saving the a vital component of the overall project, wasted valuable time that would have been saved with working equipment, while increasing risk of injury on research subjects. While we discovered the faulty equipment during the planning phase, knowing how well the equipment worked before the project was budgeted would have allowed us to place more emphasis on getting the equipment working at 100% or replaced.

 
Posted : 14/09/2019 10:38 pm
(@aniketb)
Posts: 78
Trusted Member
 

I was working in a medical device company where I was working on a project where we had an order for a lot of devices, everything was going alright until we found out that the part was not performing the way we wanted it to be, it was problem from the vendor side which created chaos and delays to the project, we had to bring in few members of sales team for getting the project on track as we had fallen behind schedule.
If we had focused more on the planning and executing phase we would have avoided the delays.

 
Posted : 15/09/2019 2:45 am
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