On a recent visit to a client in Seattle, there was an article in The Seattle Times, on the forn page about the current troubles at Boeing with the 787. The CEO of Commercial Airplanes had a wonderful quote.
"There are certain elements we need to gain control of."
A wonderful understatement of the problems with the 787.I remember a very vocal voice in the Lean community describing all the attributes of the 787 as a "lean" approach to flying from point to point, which of course was nonsense in itself since all airline routes always go point-to-point by definition and the whole concept of flying on LUV (Southwest) the example used for P-t-P but stopping in 3 locations on my way from Denver to Alabama.
Later in the article was another great PR written quote. The Rolls-Royce engines that will power most of the initial 787's are having a spot of trouble as the Brits would say.
The ground test conducted at the Rolls-Royce facility in Derby, England (I've been there selling triple redundant control system in the days with RB-211's powered gas compressor in the North Sea), in August resulted in an "un contained" engine failure. That means pieces of the engine's inards broke apart and escaped the casing around the power plant, a potentially catastrophic event if it were to occur in flight.
Another wonderful understatement. Yea that would be BAD. So is the notion that "certain elements need to be gained control of."
The complex issues of building commercial airplanes is reflected in military aircraft as well. For example the de-certification of Lockheed Martin's F-35 program's Cost Control Management Process. Yow-ee, that's gotta hurt. And the continuous increases in cost for the program don't seem to help the cause.
Anyone proposing a solution - and there some favorite self proclaimed feral project management types out there that do - are completely out of their minds (nonsense is a nicer word) to suggest simple fixes for these types of things. These types of programs may simply have our-stripped the capabilities of the processes. It has been mentioned recently that we in the US have out-stripped our ability to Govern in a similar manner. BTW the previous link is a good source of defense news outside of Aviation Week & Space Technology and it is free, which AW&ST is not.
BTW, a colleague Steve Garfein, has used Boeing versus Airbus for awhile to speak about the Strategic Portfolio Management process. Steve has another presentation that is a "must read," titled Project Management in Howard Hughes Hobby Shop. Steve was a neighbor in California many years ago and a member of the Project Management team for the AH-64 Apache Helicopter. Unlike those suggested in the last post, people like Steve and the 1,000's of others "walk the walk" regarding management of complex programs.
