International Project Management: Critical Examination of Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A380 Projects and Recommendations for Murasaki Aircraft Corporation

This essay provides a critical examination of the organizational actions and proper assumptions of Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A380 projects and recommendations for Murasaki Aircraft Corporation. The essay outlines the challenges of international project management and provides strategies to avoid issues within the company.

Running head: INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
International Project Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Introduction
Project management can be stated as the proper practice of initiation, planning,
execution, controlling and finally closing the work of team for the core purpose of achieving
the specified goals and objectives and then meeting the specified success criteria within the
given time (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The following essay outlines a brief discussion on the
case study of Murasaki Aircraft Corporation. MAC is a new aircraft manufacturer in Japan
and has shares from three major companies of Murasaki Heavy Industries, Toyota Motor
Corporation and Mitsubishi Corporation. They wish to use Boeing 787’s Dreamliner
lightweight construction technology for reducing the aircraft weight and partnering strategy.
This essay provides the critical examination of the organizational actions and proper
assumptions. Relevant recommendations would also be provided here.
Discussion
Brief Idea of the Case Study
MAC is a new manufacturer of aircraft in Japan and they have appointed a project
director. They are producing Regional Jets and is manufacturing wings of Boeing 787. The
CEO of this organization, Lisanne wants to expand the company to the next level by simply
entering into the market of medium size passenger jet and directly competing with Airbus
A380 and Boeing 787. Lisanne wishes to utilize the Boeing 787 Dreamliner lightweight
construction technology for the core purpose of reducing the weight of the aircraft and even
the partnering strategy of international consortium approaches, undertaken by Airbus and
Boeing 787 companies. Lisanne wishes to avoid the issues, faced by these two companies and
gain more success.

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Critical Examination of the Actions of the Two Companies in Project Management
Cycle
The unique products, services and results are easily produced with the help of the
project management (Burke, 2013). The project typically comprises of a definite beginning
and end and is usually specified to bring certain beneficial changes and added values. Hence,
project management is mandatory here to make sure that each and every goal is achieved
within the constraints like scope, budget, time and quality. The subsequent completion of
every project objective is the major challenge of every project manager (Marchewka, 2014).
This project is the unique and the temporary creation, which consumes the resources and has
a definite starting and ending point to operate as per the specific funding as well as budgetary
constraints.
The project management cycle comprises of four distinct phases of initiation,
planning, execution and closing (Larson et al., 2014). These four phases make up the path for
taking the project from staring to end. There is a fifth phase as well as known as controlling
and monitoring. The controlling and monitoring phases are included in the execution phase.
I) Boeing 787 Dreamliner Project: The project of Boeing 787 Dreamliner had some
of the major faults in their project management strategy. The strategy was completely
improper and inefficient and thus they suffered from failure (Kotha & Srikanth, 2013). For
the project management cycle, the actions of Boeing 787 Dreamliner are given below:
i) Initiation: Boeing 787 decided to develop their project of 787 Dreamliner and this
was one of their most popular and the largest project. They decided to provide value to both
airlines and passengers (Fleming & Koppelman, 2016). In the initiation phase, the main
problem identified was lack of strategies. They lacked stronger links amongst the mission,
objectives for the proper strategic implementation. Moreover, the process of strategic

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management ensures proper identification of strategic gaps and this was missing in this
project.
ii) Planning: The lack of long term orientation or long range goals was the major
fault in the planning phase. This eventually resulted in the subsequent identification of issues
in the later stages of project and hence they had to change the entire system design of 787
Dreamliner (Walker, 2015). They aimed of reducing the extra weight of the aircraft; however
ended up in the development of a heavier airliner. It could have been avoided easily by
properly setting a clean goal and objective for this project.
iii) Execution (Monitoring): The execution phase is divided into two phases called
monitoring and controlling. The project was not monitored properly and a project priority
system was not developed here (Harrison & Lock, 2017). Hence, the core possibility of the
resource conflict and implementation gap was not prevented in Boeing 787 Dreamliner
project. Furthermore, they did not keep a portfolio management to estimate the project NPV
as well as the CBA or cost benefit analysis. It would have saved them over budgeting. The
project portfolio is responsible for balancing the risks that are involved in a project and is also
responsible to help in prioritizing the proposal of the project as per the project criteria (Fuller
et al., 2017). Hence, project monitoring would had been better for them.
iv) Execution (Controlling): This is the second part of the execution phase of project
management cycle. The risk management program is one of the most significant and
important requirement in every project. Boeing 787 did not comprise of any specific plan of
risk management and this resulted the organization in incurring major financial losses
(Heagney, 2016). This risk management plan is responsible to identify, analyse as well as
eliminate the significant risks associated with the project. This organization did not consider
or estimate the various software and technical glitches, which the aircraft might experience.

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Complete testing was needed to recognize the glitches within the system and for properly
dealing with these several risks, the risk management plan was substantially required. Hence,
controlling would have been easier for them.
Methodologies: Regarding the issues in the four phases of project management cycle,
certain methodologies of PM would have been effective for them. For the initiation phase,
Lean methodology would had been effective (Mir & Pinnington, 2014). For planning, six
sigma would had been effective and for the execution monitoring phase, Scrum would had
been much effective. For the final phase of controlling, Lean would be effective.
II) Airbus A380 Project: The project of Airbus A380 is considered as one of the
major aircraft project that could have easily usher the new era of the super jumbo jets. This
particular Airbus A380 had the capability of carrying up to 853 passengers as well as crew.
This was supposed to be launched in the year of 2002 (Dörfler & Baumann, 2014). The
organization of Airbus then further undertook additional or extra steps for the core purpose of
integrating the consortium and then announced a completely new administrative structure of
the project. They made the plan of making this structure in such a manner that it could
physically locate the top managers from one of the 16 sites within one location. However, the
changes were not at adequate.
For the project management cycle, the actions of this company are as follows:
i) Initiation: The first and the foremost problem in the initiation phase of this project
of Airbus A380 was the lack of project objectives. Apart from the technical problems, there
were significant managerial issues in this project (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017). Due to the lack
of proper management and managerial coordination, the project lacked its objectives. This
was extremely important for them to reduce the issues in this particular phase.

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ii) Planning: For this phase, the major phases identified here were the lack of
planning. The efficient project management needs controlled scope and resource focus as per
the respective organizational needs and thus Airbus A380 project lacked effective planning.
There was a lack of concrete plan in their project and they did not have clear objectives in the
beginning (Leach, 2014). Thus, decision making was also difficult in the project. Project
delays were the other effect of this lack of planning.
iii) Execution (Monitoring): In this phase, the main issue was the extensive design
changes. The stakeholders of the project brought some of the major changes here and this
increased the project cost in high level. Thus, project monitoring was not successful.
iv) Execution (Controlling): Regarding the risk management, they did not make any
plan for technical issues and strategic issues. The consortium was expected to provide the
best and hence they took the decision of structural changes (Hwang & Ng, 2013). However,
the movement of the management in the central location failed miserably and they were not
ready with it. Hence, they did not consider risk management plan for management failures.
Methodologies: For the initiation phase, the PM methodology of Six Sigma would be
effective (Kerzner, 2018). For planning phase, CPM would have been better and for both the
divisions of execution phase, Lean methodology would be effective.
Recommendations of Strategies for the Japanese Company of MAC
Murasaki Aircraft Corporation or MAC is a Japanese aircraft company with a female
CEO, namely Lisanne. They have supply partners in the entire world and is quite efficient
and effective in terms of their products and services. The CEO of this organization of MAC
wishes to use the experience and effectiveness of Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 projects and
hence has asked her project director to collect as much as information possible for these two
above mentioned projects. These two projects of Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 have faced

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some of the major and the most significant issues related to their cultural differences and
various other issues. Since, these two were international projects, such issues were absolutely
unique for them. Lisanne does not want to face similar issues in her organization. The
following recommendations are some of the important strategies for Murasaki Aircraft
Corporation to avoid these types of issues within the company.
i) Reduction of Differing Standards: The first and the foremost recommendation that
could be extremely effective and efficient for this organization of Murasaki Aircraft
Corporation is the proper reduction of the differing of standards. The major problem with
these standards is quite high globally as well as in the international project management.
Since, the standards are different and vary from country to country, it is highly considered
that such standards would be utilized in multiple methods as needed. Some of the major and
the most significant areas of consideration are the cultural differences and time zone changes.
ii) Power Distance: The second important and significant recommendation is the
alignment of power distance. It is the specific gap between equality as well as acceptance of
the respective power distribution. Boeing 787 was a failure because of the flat management
structure. This flat management structure has a low power distance since there are greater
enface on the equality. In the environment of an international project management, the
stakeholders could be properly engaged and hence the high power distance is being applied.
iii) Long Term Orientation: The next subsequent and noteworthy recommendation of
strategy is the involvement of long term orientation. Boeing 787 project was unable to
manage their supply chain and hence this became a major failure. MAC should undertake
some of the measures as per the preference of long term orientation. The value within the
applications in the international project management is properly checked from the

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engagement perspective. Moreover, with the long term orientation, there is little value of
sticking to the short term deadline.
iv) Proper and Efficient Project Management Strategy: The fourth and the next
significant recommendation is the proper and efficient project management strategy. The
project of 787 Dreamliner suffered from multiple laybacks in project execution for their
improper and inefficient strategy. This could be avoided by MAC by their implementation of
an effective and efficient strategy. Hence, they would be able to remove the issues.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, conclusion could be drawn that project
management is the significant method to organize each and every activity that is associated to
the project. The major purpose of the project eventually range from the development of new
product to the service launching. The international project management is stated as the proper
management of the projects internationally or across the cultures and borders and hence,
international project management needs a specified set of skills for the purpose of ensuring
major success while managing these projects. There are various challenges of the
international project management and these are extremely common for all international
projects. The above essay has outlined the case study of MAC. It is a new company of
aircraft manufacturer and has various strategies. This essay has clearly described the various
actions of the company with proper recommendations.

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