Improving the planning of engineers and programmers at Romias

This thesis contributes to a better understanding of engineers and programmers in an Engineer-To-Order (ETO) company. The planning of engineering and programming activities in ETO projects is hard, since the duration of these activities is very hard to predict. Problems already arise in an early stadium of a (potential) project. The price of a project is based on an offer calculation with estimated required hours to perform the project. When the actual number of hours is higher than the estimated number, this results in extra costs for Romias. In the end, projects can be sold without making any profits. The gap between estimated and actual hours to perform project activities is not only caused by a variable duration of the project activities, but also by the occurrence of disturbing activities. Disturbing activities are in the current situation always performed immediately after occurrence, in most cases in the time that engineers and programmers have to work on project activities. We analyzed the current situation and conducted a literature study. The potential improvements were tested in a simulation model.