Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was supposed to be in service by spring 2008. As it stands, its first delivery may slip into 2011. Airbus Military's A400M should have flown in October 2008 and been in service by now - the aircraft first flew at the end of 2009 and may see service in late 2012.
The development and demonstration phase of Lockheed Martin's F-35 programme will not close until 2016 - four years behind schedule. Whole-life cost estimates have risen 80%, to £380 million ($605 million).
Airbus's A380 entered service nearly three years ago, but last year the airframer managed to deliver just 10 aircraft - barely half as many as planned. Development costs soared from a budgeted $8 billion to $12.2 billion, and the programme remains a financial drag.
Nobody would dispute that "over budget and late" are themes common to major aircraft programmes in the USA and Europe. The annual "Issues Radar" aerospace management survey by strategy consultants Roland Berger has flagged up programme management as a key worry for four years running.
Why? And, more urgently, what is to be done?
SURVIVAL PRESSURE
Paris-based Roland Berger partner Philippe Plouvier notes that civil and military programmes suffer from similar problems. While the likes of Airbus, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are not going to go bust over any one programme, cost and time overruns do put survival pressure on some companies in the supply chain. And, says Plouvier, overruns put pressure on defence budgets.
In defence programmes, the historical cost-plus contract has long been discredited for simply pushing to the customer - the government - the cost of managing, however badly, a complex programme, and hence putting little pressure on contractors. So, the last 10 years or so has seen change in most aspects of how programmes are run and how contracts are awarded. Delays may be a symptom of trying to change too much too quickly.
Plouvier notes that while defence departments have been demanding ever-greater product performance, they have been setting tighter and tighter timeframes and cost targets and thrown new complexities into the mix, such as environmental considerations. Meanwhile, contractors have been globalising and launching multiple programmes while reducing head counts and moving to bring suppliers into the design stream earlier than ever.
This leaves major programmes with almost no flexibility to absorb setbacks without falling behind. Plouvier cites the example of the A400M; for many of these reasons, the programme was run to a short development timetable of six years - less than half of what comparable US programmes such as the Boeing C-17 and Lockheed Martin C-130 were allocated.
Civil programmes are finding themselves in a similar, no-margin-for-error situation.
There is no magic solution, says Plouvier's London-based colleague Robert Thomson, but clearly companies need to recognise that while external suppliers are often blamed, many failings can be internal. For example, he says, there may be little transfer of programme management knowledge from one project to the next. Teams working on a particular programme tend to stay with that programme to resolve its troubles. Thus, when the same company launches its next programme, the experience of how to avoid pitfalls can remain with the earlier programme.
Or, one major programme's consumption of management expertise can leave a company too stretched when it comes to launching another programme.
So choosing the right programme manager is critical, he says. Internally, companies must be prepared to change mindsets to roll out sound programme management practices. Early identification of areas for improvement should be a priority, so that firefighting does not become standard procedure.
Plouvier says that where possible, new practices - involvement of suppliers in design and major production, for example - should be established and bedded in before further major changes are introduced.
The lesson that should be drawn from recent experience is that making too many changes at once leads to problems. Says Plouvier: "You must choose where you take risks in terms of timing, technology, cost, new industrial set-up, etc. You can't take risk everywhere."
Source: Flight International
