October 1, 2010
School of Business, Coimbatore
 

Mohnish Chamadia graduated from the Amrita School of Business in 2010. He is currently employed as Commercial Executive and Planning Head, Greta Energy Limited at Nagpur.
 

Recently Mohnish wrote to his faculty at the B-School. He specifically wrote to his professor who had taught the class on Project Management (PM).
 

“Having learned the PM subject is now proving very useful to me in my organization, Sir,” he stated. “I am working for a company that is planning to start a 15MW Thermal Power Plant. The plant will be operational latest by July 2011.
 

In his email, Mohnish explained how the concepts he had learned in the class were helping him at his workplace.
 

The company contracts to several suppliers – for Boiler, Turbine-Generator, Coal Handling, Ash Handling, Chimney, ESP, Crane, etc – and Mohnish was asked to prepare the project schedule for the completion of the suppliers’ tasks.
 

“The contractors will start coming to the plant site for fabrication one-by-one from November onwards and stay on till May,” he explained. “I am able to use MS-Project to prepare not only the project schedule but also the schedule of electricity supply to each of them. Since we will be supplying one point electricity to them, the latter is extremely important, as well.”
 

“Through PERT and CPM Charts, I am trying to track different paths involved. It is important to know the critical path and maximum period of time that is required to complete the project.”
 

“I hope that with this planning, we are able to avoid any delays in the fabrication tasks of the contractors due to the unavailability of sufficient supply of electricity or other overlaps.”
 

Defined as the discipline wherein resources are planned, organized, secured and managed to bring about the successful completion of specific engineering project goals and objectives, project management is an essential part of any B-School’s curriculum.
 

Mohnish wrote more to his professor.
 

“I thank you, Sir, for having taught me the subject and also the MS-Project software. I have been using the tool and it may take me a little while to understand how exactly I want to prepare the schedule. I will talk to you regarding this issue in a little more detail when I will visit the campus either on Convocation day or in November to collect the degree.”
 

“I, once again thank you for having provided me knowledge in the subject.”
 

The professor awaits Mohnish’s visit. No matter how busy he is, he will take time to answer Mohnish’s queries and help him in whatever way possible. This is not the first time he has received a request from an ex-student for help. Nor, by any means, is he the only faculty member to receive such requests in the B-School.
 

“The faculty at Amrita are always so very willing to help,” summed up Mohnish. “No matter who approaches them, my experience has been that they are always extremely cooperative.”