60.1 INTRODUCTION

As companies have moved into the twenty-first century, the philosophy of project management has played an increasing role in obtaining their global objectives. Global competition, along with the influx of computer technology, has created an environment of change in the modern workplace that is occurring faster than ever before, and at an increasing level of complexity. The discipline of project management has served, and will continue to serve as the fundamental philosophy to deal with product and manufacturing process changes as projects become the foremost mechanism for creating new products and processes. This change is occurring, however, because organizations have had the willingness and strength to adopt project management as a body of knowledge rather than as a set of tools or a special case of traditional management. As product life cycles grow shorter and shorter, the use of projects as a fundamental means of instituting change in the enterprise becomes more necessary. And as the constant need for project implementation grows, the need to establish project management as a strategy within the enterprise becomes obvious. This manner of thinking will serve as the enterprise s primary means to cope with ongoing change existing in today s markets.

Many manufacturing industries have long ignored the project management philosophy despite the innumerable successes witnessed through its employment. These companies will inevitably be left behind, if they have not already, as this manner of thinking grows in popularity...