Project Plan and Functional Specification - due Tuesday, April 14 at 5pm

The project plan and the functional specification are two of the more important documents that an engineer prepares – whether he or she works in government, industry or academia and whether he or she is a designer, researcher or production engineer. In this case we are asking you to combine them into a single document.

This document is not written for a general technical audience but for a specific person (e.g., a client) or a small group (e.g., a board of directors or a review committee) that has a problem that you believe you can solve. It is intended to convince that person or group that:

   1. You clearly understand what the problem is; this includes defining the extent of the challenge
   2. You have studied the background and related literature
   3. You have ideas about how the challenge may be solved
   4. You have mapped the client's and customers’ requirements into a set of engineering specifications with appropriate quantitative and qualitative metrics
   5. You can do it in the time available, and with appropriate resources (use a time-table of tasks defining the contributions of each group member)

The document must be professional. Statements must be supported, ideas must be defined clearly and with enough proof and illustrations that readers can evaluate for themselves.

A typical format requires:

   1. A Title Page showing, besides the project title, the name(s) and address(es) of those preparing the proposal.
   2. An Introduction that summarizes considerations that led to the project.
   3. A statement of Objectives, which should be stated as precisely as possible. This is what you will do for the client. In this course, it will contain the design criteria or requirements that your project will strive to meet.
   4. A section laying out the Functional Specification. This describes what you expect to do and how.  Include qualitative and quantitative specifications for the desired performance. This section may include a discussion of existing information (from searching, from client) that will have a bearing on the proposed work.  If there is more than one way to solve the problem (hopefully!), it briefly describes these ways and also shows how you will select the preferred way and bring it to fruition. Idea sketches are very appropriate in this section.
   5. A Management Plan. This includes a prospective time-table with mile-stones (preliminary design, final design completed, testing initiated, testing completed, prototype construction initiated, etc.).

Appendix: This may include detailed calculations, technical data and other supporting information that is not appropriate to include in the main body of the proposal.
In a commercial proposal there are often other items, such as qualifications of the proposer(s) and various contractual conditions. Only a timetable (typically presented as a Gantt Chart) is required in your document.