IMB 625

SATTVA eTECH: MANAGING UNCERTAINTIES IN

THE PROJECT NETWORK

TARUN JAIN AND JISHNU HAZRA

Tarun Jain, Professor at the Indian Institute of Management Udaipur, and Jishnu Hazra, Professor of Production and Operations
Management, prepared this case for class discussion. This case is not intended to serve as an endorsement, source of primary
data, or to show effective or inefficient handling of decision or business processes.

Copyright © 2017 by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. No part of the publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (including internet) –
without the permission of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Meeting project deadlines requires commitment from our development team

and our partner suppliers, and a high involvement from our clients as well. If we
commit to a customer’s development requirements, we ensure that we meet that
deadline.
— N V Maslekar, CEO, SATTVA eTECH India Private Limited

On December 7, 2014, N V Maslekar, the CEO of Sattva eTech received a call from the Head of
Manufacturing, Defense Manufacturing Company (DMC), regarding an urgent requirement for the
development of test equipment, needed for their ongoing project of air-launched missiles. The test
equipment was to be provided latest by September 28, 2015 since the air-launched missiles were to be
shipped by January 5, 2016. The testing of missiles required one month and a safety margin of another
one month was needed to resolve any issues if things were to go wrong at DMC's end. This was a “build
to print” requirement, and Maslekar recalled further that they had processed a similar requirement for
other clients as well. After a brief meeting with Kumar Shyam, the CTO of the company, Maslekar
confirmed to DMC's manufacturing head that they were willing to execute this project. Kumar assigned
this project's responsibility to Ram, who had an experience of 5 years at Sattva as a senior project
manager. Further, Ram was an expert in handling military and defense related requirements. Ram
analyzed the whole project structure and wondered whether they would be able to finish the project
within the 40-week deadline as there were high uncertainties in the project activity times.

SATTVA eTECH

Sattva eTech was founded as a design company in 2000 was a result of a spinoff from VXL Instruments
and at that time was named VXL eTech. N V Maslekar was appointed the Chief Executive Officer and
Kumar Shyam was appointed as the Chief Technology Officer. Exhibit 1 illustrates the
organizational structure of the firm. Later, VXL eTech was rebranded as Sattva eTech when the company
joined the Sattva group of companies. The primary focus of the company was on design, development,
prototyping, and manufacturing of embedded system products.

The embedded product design market has been constantly growing in India and reached USD 5 billion in
2009.1 This market includes major segments such as telecom, consumer electronics, automobile
automation, aerospace and defense, military and the nuclear power sectors, with Sattva contributing to
most of these markets. For example, in the nuclear segment, the company has developed a real-time
operating system which is used to operate nuclear plants. In the defense and military sector, Sattva has
developed products such as the Encryption Communication device for missile systems and warship
steering control units. Sattva’s industrial automation projects included pump monitoring systems and
temperature monitoring systems. Medical automation projects included design, development, and
manufacturing of robotic positioning systems for biopsy, portable blood bag sealers, etc. Exhibit 2 shows
various technologies in the embedded product development space over which the company has gained
expertise.

1
Embedded Systems Opportunity: Powering Indian IT up the Value Chain, Nasscom Report, 2015.

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

DEFENSE MISSILE CORPORATION2 PROJECT

Defense Missile Corporation has been a leading developer and manufacturer of missiles in Europe.
Engineers at Sattva had to develop a batch of hundred test equipment that would be used by DMC in its
ongoing project. The designed test equipment was required to test the connectivity of missiles with the
aircraft which carried the missile, that is, the developed equipment should ensure that the connectivity
was aligned such that when the operator of the aircraft executed the “missile fire” command, the missile
should leave the plane and hit the target (see Exhibit 3 for a picture of the equipment). This was a “build
to print” requirement where the design was supplied by DMC. Along with the development of the
equipment, Sattva had to develop various test jigs to test various functionalities of the final equipment.
Considering the stringent deadlines from DMC for this project, Ram knew that planning of the entire
project was crucial towards the successful delivery and clearance of the equipment at DMC’s facility.

EQUIPMENT DEVELOPMENT TASKS AND SCHEDULE

On December 17, 2014, Ram established a project planning schedule in which various activities and their
completion times were specified. First, the engineers of Sattva had to attend a specialized training to be
held at DMC’s facility during December 21–26, 2014. This was a one-week program which involved
technology and knowledge transfer of the equipment’s design to Sattva’s engineers.

After the training phase, based on the analysis of design and the bill of materials of the testing equipment,
the component procurement would begin. Since development of the electrical and functional jigs (EFJ)
was one of the longest steps of the whole project, Ram decided to do this in parallel to component
procurement. The role of the functional jig was to check whether the actuation system was working or
not. Further, the electric jigs performed checks such as the presence of power supply, stability of power
supply, etc. This stage involved the entire design and prototyping of the jig. After the design was
finalized, the components for EFJ would be sourced from specific suppliers approved by DMC. Once the
components were procured, EFJ would be developed and again tested for its functionality. Since this step
involved sourcing of components from restricted sources along with highly complex activities, Ram
found that the completion time for this activity was highly uncertain after analyzing past data. Exhibit 4
provides activity completion times for EFJ development and the component procurement stage from
previous projects.

Considering the early deadline, Maslekar also advised Ram that since the enclosure specifications were
fixed for this “build to print” project, he may schedule the development of jigs for manufacturing of
enclosure plates, and fixture for wire harnessing right after the training of the engineers. This would
ensure that the enclosure box would be available as soon as the PCB assembly was ready. Hence, parallel
to the procurement of components and the development of electrical and functional jigs, Ram decided to
develop jigs for vibration testing, jigs for manufacturing of top plate, bottom plate and platine, and jigs

2
Disguised Name

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

and fixtures for cable harnessing. The vibration test jig was developed to ensure that the test equipment
yielded stable reading even after being subjected to vibrations in the aircraft.

The final assembly box would contain a top plate and a bottom plate, and assembly would be required to
fit them together as a jig. Hence, Ram also planned to develop the jigs assembly in parallel. The
development of fixtures for harnessing involved the fabrication of a variety of fixtures. It helped to hold
the cables together, align them together, and finally tighten the cable bundle properly.

As soon as the jigs for manufacturing of enclosure plates were developed, the next step would be to
manufacture the enclosure plates. This would be followed by the assembly of the electrical relays on the
plates. Then, using the fixtures, the cables would be finally harnessed on the relay box. After that, using
the harnessing jig, the cable connections and their alignments would be tested. See Exhibit 5 for the
estimates of mean and standard deviation of each project activity.

Assembly of printed circuit board (PBC) was scheduled next. In this step, the bare circuit board was first
prepared according to the circuit schematics. Then, according to design specifications, all the electronic
components were to be inserted on this bare board. Once the board was ready, environmental tests to
study the impact of temperature, humidity, exposure to salts, etc. would be conducted. Since Sattva did
not have a separate facility for environmental testing, this step was outsourced and would be conducted in
government approved specialized labs. These labs possessed high testing capacity, hence this activity was
also more or less certain.

The next scheduled activity would be thermal aging tests. Thermal aging tests were conducted to check
the stability of the equipment readings when the temperature gradually changed. For these sets of
experiments, the temperature was slowly increased and the test readings were observed to ensure stability.
Then the entire relay box was to be assembled in the casting enclosure. Assembly of the complete relay
box would take one week. Then, the test equipment would be scheduled to be tested using vibration jig
under increasing degrees of vibration level. Finally, using the previously developed EFJ, the electrical and
functional tests would be performed. After this, the equipment would be packed and shipped to DMC.
This would be followed by a quick clearance of this production batch from DMC at their facility.
Shipping and the clearance would take another week’s time. Exhibit 6 provides the illustrations of key
steps of test equipment development.

Ram analyzed all the key steps and decided on the schedule, preparing a Gantt chart based on the mean
estimates (see Exhibit 7). He found that the expected completion time of the entire project was 38 weeks,
which was 2 weeks ahead of the deadline. He documented his analysis and shared it with Kumar.

CONCERNS AND MOVING AHEAD

Kumar analyzed the Ram’s estimates, and although he was convinced about the individual activity time
lines, he was concerned if the project would be complete within the 40 weeks deadline. Kumar explained:

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

I see high uncertainties in the test equipment’s electronic component procurement

activity… also there are high uncertainties in design and development of electric and
functional test jig. In case things go bad, we may need more than 40 weeks to complete
this project…in that case, we would lose this project and it would hurt our future
engagements with DMC. We have to do something else. I think we need to somehow
tackle the uncertainties.

Kumar carefully analyzed the design and bill of material for the test equipment, then commented:

I see that there is around 60% commonality in components that we will definitely be
using to develop the electric and functional test jigs. In the current schedule, we are first
fixing the designing of the jigs and then procuring the electronic components. Now if
along with procuring the test equipment’s electronic components, we also procure these
60% common components that would be used in any finalized design, we can reduce
some activity times. Moreover, since the components are to be sourced from the fixed
suppliers, the element of uncertainty for some activities can be reduced if we were to club
the procurement of these common components.

Kumar further suggested:

There are high uncertainties in the assembly of relay box as this step is completely
outsourced to an external supplier. For the past few projects, our engineers have
assembled the relay box in-house and have gained an expertise in this activity. Now, if
they were to process this activity in-house for this project as well, there should not be any
uncertainty in this phase, and we can definitely finish the assembly of entire relay box in
not more than one and half weeks.

Ram carefully analyzed the recommendations made by Kumar and then revised his activity time
estimates. His analysis revealed that if he procured the 60% common components beforehand, the mean
estimate of the procurement of electronic components may increase by 0.5 weeks and the standard
deviation would also increase by 0.5 weeks. This was because a high requirement was now to be sourced
from these fixed suppliers. He further found that this strategy would decrease the activity time of
electrical and functional jig development by 6 weeks. Ram also noted than if the assembly of the relay
box was in-sourced, then the activity time would decrease by 1.5 weeks. Further, he found out that similar
designs of relay box were processed in-house recently, and hence there would not be any uncertainty in
this activity.

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Exhibit 1
Organizational Structure

Source: Company Records

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Exhibit 2
Embedded Product Development Technologies

Source: Company Records

Exhibit 3
Test Equipment

Source: Company Records

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Exhibit 4
Past Project Completion Times

(a) Procurement of Electronic Components (in weeks)

22.641 18.099 19.410 19.000 27.100 30.000 27.961

25.625 22.000 13.524 22.000 23.081 20.000 26.345

19.615 25.429 23.204 9.719 26.000 19.520 25.497

21.758 32.008 18.000 32.000 6.000 17.845 20.018

12.532 22.417 22.753 17.013 19.125 23.034 16.000

16.268 17.919 23.319 13.621 5.000 15.827 28.748

17.453 23.242 14.731 13.201 28.000 26.029 16.000

(b) Assembly of Relay Box (in weeks)

7.5 10 6 10 7 4 4

0.25 0.25 2.5 0.5 1.5 6 10

3.2 10.5 8.5 0.1 6 6 6

2 2 1 3.5 5 6 0.25

10 11.5 5 4.5 7 0.5 4

6.5 5 10 11.5 7.5 6.5 6.25

1.25 11 9.5 2.5 11.5 6 2.25

Source: Company Records

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Exhibit 5
Planning Activities for the DMC Product

Activity Task Name Predecessors Mean Standard

Tasks Duration Deviation*
(weeks) (weeks)
A Training of SATTVA eTECH at DMC 1 -
B Procurement of Electronic Components A 20.5 6
C Electrical and Functional Test Jig Design & A 18 -
Development
D Vibration Test Jig Design & Development A 6 -
E Jigs for manufacturing Top Plate, Bottom Plate A 5 -
and Platine
F Jigs & Fixtures for Harnessing and Electrical A 4 -
Tests for Platine of Relay Box
G Manufacturing Top Plate, Bottom Plate and E 5 -
Platine
H Assembly of Relays on Platine G 1 -
I Harnessing of Relay Box H,F 7 -
J Testing of Harnessing and Electrical Tests for I 2 -
Platine
K Assembly of PCB B,J,D,C 2 -
L Environmental Tests for Assembled PCB K 1 -
M Thermal Aging Tests for Assembled PCB L 2 -
N Assembly of the Complete Relay Box in the M 5.5 3.5
Casting Enclosure
O Vibration Testing of the Integrated Relay Box N 1 -
P Electrical & Functional Tests O 1 -
Q Packing of Relay Box P 1 -
R Shipment and Clearance from DMC Q 3 -

*Estimates of the standard deviation of activities B and N are obtained from data provided in Exhibit 4. Activities other than B and N have very
low variability; hence, all these activity times are more or less deterministic.

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Exhibit 6
Illustrations from the Stages of the Test Equipment Development

(a) A typical assembled PCB board

(b) Relay box cable assembly

(c) Relay box

Source: Company Records

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 SATTVA eTECH: Managing Uncertainties in the Project Network

Exhibit 7
Gantt Chart Based on Mean Estimates Developed by Ram

W
W W W 24. W W W
W1 W5 10 15 20 5 30.5 35 38
A
B
C
D
K
L
M
G
E
H
F
I
J
N
O
P
Q
R

Source: Company Records

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