ENGR 100W LAB ASSIGNMENT Dr Thalia Anagnos Objectives of Assignment Practice writing an internal progress report in memo form Practice editing skills Background Most informal memo reports are written to management to keep them informed about problems and successes of projects in progress In this assignment you are the Lead Engineer responsible for developing a Geographic Information System GIS for Happy Quail Farm in the Salinas Valley Your report is to be written to your supervisor Chief Engineer Ivan Sweet at EnvironSJ Happy Quail Farm has granted EnvironSJ a contract to develop and test a GIS system to keep track of data related to soil type pesticide and fertilizer application irrigation rainfall and crop yield Work started three months ago and is scheduled to be completed two weeks from today The following is a list of your team members George Glover Apprentice Engineer Raoul Rodriquez Civil Engineer Larry Lee GIS specialist Gary Tran Programmer Carla Castro Computer Engineer Harish Patel Industrial Engineer Your entire team is staying in Salinas California They are driving a Dodge pickup truck and a hybrid Toyota Highlander both owned by EnvironSJ You are using Toshiba Port g R400 computers and ArcGIS software for data entry and analysis Your work is conducted out of the farm office at the site During the first two months of the project the following work was accomplished George collected base maps from the Monterey County Farm Bureau to establish coordinates and elevations for the farm Raoul with help from George surveyed portions of the site to confirm and correct data provided on the base maps Gary and Carla installed software on all of the tablet computers and installed a wireless local area network to allow the team to connect to the new server Larry entered the data from the base maps into the GIS database and developed additional GIS layers to analyze and display data related to soil type pesticide and fertilizer application irrigation rainfall and crop yield You worked with Harish to interview farm management and to shadow employees as they completed farm processes so that you could identify the best methods for collecting required data The next month was used to collect soil samples as well as data on pesticide application fertilizer application irrigation effectiveness rainfall and crop plantings and harvesting patterns Soil samples were taken to the Soils Testing laboratory in Sacramento California to be analyzed for soil characteristics such as grain size mineral content organic content and pH George and Larry entered all of the data into the GIS database Gary and Carla programmed the tablet computers to be compatible with the Global Positioning Systems GPS in the helicopters and farm equipment so that data could be automatically transferred to the GIS database You Raoul and Harish began testing the GIS system by running some simple analyses Page 1 ENGR 100W LAB ASSIGNMENT Dr Thalia Anagnos The next two weeks are scheduled to fully test the capabilities of the system Happy Quail Farm will be harvesting lettuce in one field and applying pesticide in another This will allow for real time data acquisition and analysis Last week the server crashed and some of the data had not been backed up Replacing the hard disk cost 350 reentering the data took three days Yesterday the California Department of Pesticide Regulation found high residue levels on leaf lettuce in one of the fields They are requiring that harvesting be delayed for one week until the residue has dropped to acceptable levels This means that full scale testing of the system cannot start until next Monday leaving the team only one week to identify and fix all bugs in the GIS system This morning George reported that the truck he used to visit the harvesters in the field broke down on Highway 101 He had it towed to a Dodge garage where they found a seized transmission The estimate is that it will take two days and 2 300 to repair Your schedule is critical because Larry Gary and Carla are already assigned to a new project in Stockton California two weeks from now and must leave the day the project is scheduled to be completed The penalty costs for going beyond the contracted termination date of the project will be 1 000 per day in addition to the normal costs of the team s salary and operating expenses Assignment Consider the implications of your problems and what could be done to help the situation Should you hire additional help If so when Should you have the team work overtime How much will it cost When will the project be completed Do you have a new time schedule Write your report to the Ivan Sweet Chief Engineer Tell him what you have accomplished what still has to be done and the problems the project has encountered Describe the implications of the current project status and suggest solutions Remember to consider what he wants to know about the project and what he needs to know He is counting on you for solutions so do not ask him for a solution Your future at EnvironSJ may very well depend on how well you handle this report Write the report as a memo using a typical format for a progress report You should include the following an introduction that explains the purpose of the report and includes a short description of the project the date the project began the date it is scheduled to be completed and a short summary of the work completed to date a task status section that describes in more detail work completed work in progress and work remaining on specific tasks See textbook or web site for different formats for presenting the task status information a section on project problems or modifications and associated costs and a concluding section that gives an overall assessment of the progress on the project This section should include recommendations or actions required to keep the project on schedule Page 2 ENGR 100W LAB ASSIGNMENT Dr Thalia Anagnos Refer to your resources if you have questions about how to format a progress report Do not just retype everything I have described in the scenario Use your own words and summarize the situation clearly and succinctly Guidelines The assignment must be turned in at the end of this class period and a copy MUST BE TURNED INTO TURNITIN COM if not 5 points Complete the memo with 12 point Times Roman font 1 1 2 line spacing and 1 inch margins Proofread your document before you print it Print TWO copies of the memo Submit an electronic copy to Turnitin com Hand in