International Projects – project management

Learn about the key learnings from Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner projects for Murasaki Aircraft Corporation's growth ambition project. Understand the importance of project management, planning, risk assessment, and control.

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS –
PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management
Table of Contents
Introducción..........................................................................................................................................2
Lessons Learned – Airbus A380............................................................................................................2
Lessons Learned – Boeing 787 Dreamliner...........................................................................................4
Key Learnings for MAC’s Growth Ambition Project............................................................................5
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................6
Reference...............................................................................................................................................8
1

Project Management
Introduction
MAC or Murasaki Aircraft Corporation is an aircraft manufacturing company based in Japan
and is quite new in this business. Their parent company is MHI or Murasaki Heavy Industries
who owns nearly 64% of the shares. The rest of the company is owned by Mitsubishi and
Toyota Corporation who each own 10% of the stake in the company. A minor part of the
share is also own by another two Japanese company known as Sumitomo Corporation as well
as Mitsui & Co. The company is currently in the business of producing Jets for regional
requirements. However, Lisanne, who is the CEO of MAC is hoping to expand the business
line. Another set of business activity typically include the passenger jets that are medium
sized. This would increase the line of business to another level.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner as well as Airbus A380 are another two projects of international
origin based in similar field which can also impart the needed managerial knowledge to
Lisanne and the team. This is because, there were several good and bad decisions and
activities that took place in these two projects and the same can be learning source for the
team at MAC.
The report presented below would cover both positive and negative aspects of the given two
projects and the main learnings arising out of it for MAC.
Lessons Learned – Airbus A380
Airbus is a jet manufacturing company that was founded in 1970. Its main aim was the
manufacturing of advanced as well as modern Aircrafts as well as the upgradation of existing
production capabilities. Airbus employs over 57,000 employees at the moment. Their A380
line of Aircraft is among the largest projects that they’ve undertaken and it was initiated
during the year 2000. The main goal of the project being manufacturing of a super-jumbo Jet
that is capable of carrying over 850 passengers as well as crew. The initial launch date was
set as 2002 (BBC, 2012).
Simultaneously, it was also decided that an additional set of re-structuring would be
performed internally in terms of their employees that would ensure the re-location of several
of their top-level management from various sites to a common site. It was envisioned that this
kind of process will eventually result in reduction of various conflicts that plagues them
leading to an improvement in effective management (Dvir, Sadeh and Malach-Pines, 2006).
2

Project Management
In the year of 2000, several production related issues started to crop up. These issues
eventually lead to their inability of meeting delivery deadline. Moreover, instead of resolving
these issues the German and French production facilities where the issues were occurring
started blaming each other. Subsequently, in the next year, the wiring harness which was
produced in the Hamburg plant had eventually failed its installation and the plane was present
in the Toulouse plant at its assembly stage.
CATIA which is an essential software used in Aircraft industry was revealed that an older
version of the software had been installed in the Hamburg plant. Although, in the Toulouse
plant the latest version was being used. Owing to these conflicts, compatibility issues cropped
up and it became apparent in designing the essential wiring system. This further lead to the
delay of over 2 years and the overall cost exceeded by 6 Billion USD.
The main reason for these failures were believed to be software compatibility issues. Besides
these however, there were some other issues and mistakes which had happened during the
project by the management team which eventually contributed as the main failure for the
project (Droller & Baumann, 2014).
There are some very critical project management guidelines and phases which needs to be
executed in all of the projects. The importance of such characteristics and guidelines vary
based on the project. For example, in the Airbus A380 project, it was a significantly large
project of international importance. As a result, a certain characteristic had needed to be
maintained and the same wasn’t done. These includes:
 Identity of the Member: It is essential in project management that each of the member
identifies with their respective responsibilities and roles while placing their own
selfish interest and goals lowest possible priority. However, in the case of Airbus
A380, members had failed to identify the main goals of the project as their personal
interests took priority.
 Integration of unit: All of the organizations different departments and units need to
work in a cohesive manner. They should work in tandem and collaborate with each
other at every step. The same was not found in the case when the Airbus A380 were
being produced (Chen, 2015).
 Tolerance of Conflict: Several conflicts were measured in the top level of
management and it wasn’t resolved during until the very advanced stage of the project
eventually leading to the failure of the project.
3

Project Management
 Apart from this, software compatibility issues that had been found in the development
of the project was also among the core reasons of the project failure. These include
software compatibility issues and software testing. This is because, software testing is
an integral and critical part of the project. An effective monitoring as well as control
by the end of the project managers would have resulted into a much different
scenario.
Lessons Learned – Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Boeing is also Aircraft manufacturing corporation based in America. It’s a multi-national
corporation and is involved in the manufacturing, designing as well as production of rockets,
satellites as well as Aircrafts. The company employs over 160,000 employees. Boeing began
their ambitious project of the Dreamliner 787 in the year of 2003. However, the project
witnessed several major failures and areas relating to budget overrun and scheduling issues.
The estimated cost of the project was around 5 Billion USD however it exceeded beyond 17-
23 Billion USD (Airbus announces A380 delay, 2006).
Several reasons had resulted in this failure. The main technical architects of the project
advised the company to stick with traditional manufacturing methods, however the company
in a hope of bringing the cost down outsourced several of the processes and tasks to other
companies. This actually went against the project resulting into budget overrun (Turner,
2006).
The main management which was used in the project also fell short. There are couple of
reasons that could be learnt from the issues surrounding the Dreamliner aircraft.
 Project management being a discipline is meant to be an integral part of the project.
There are multiple guidelines and phases which can be defined and it must be
followed so as to ensure the decision-making processes as well as abilities are enough.
 The importance of the project control is very high as it involves with the validation
and verification of the tasks and activities. The same project related control had been
absent in the Dreamliner 787 case. This is mainly because the entire project had been
outsources bringing down the control and monitoring which could be applied (Mascia,
2014)
 It is essential to execute several feasibility studies as well as consider the comments
given by the experts. In the Boeing 787 Dreamliner case, management never took any
consideration and advice that had been provided by the team of experts. This
4

Project Management
eventually caused incorrect decision making at the end of Boeing management
leading the project budget overrun.
As a result, both of these projects could have been solved simply put if more project
management guidelines were followed more thoroughly. This means that PMBoK guidelines
should’ve been followed more thoroughly. Apart from that, verification and validation of
activities should’ve been performed. They could’ve also made use of IT based project
management tool to track validation and verification based activities. Apart from this, expert
inputs would’ve also helped in solving the issues faced by the projects.
Key Learnings for MAC’s Growth Ambition Project
Project management being the most important and essential activities that is needed to be
executed in the project. The importance of good project management techniques and control
increases manifold in the case if the project is of international standard and large enough.
Overall the 5 phases that are included in the project management methodologies are:
 Initial phase: In this phase, the high-level project details which has been specified as
well as the feasibility studies are typically carried out. These aspects are economical,
environmental, technical and operational factors. The main outcome of the feasibility
study is analyzed later on in order to come up with decision whether or not the
project related activities are to be carried or not.
 Plan phase: The plan phase can be considered the most important phase as it in this
phase the main project management plans are implemented. In order to complete the
phase, several tasks are to be carried out and these include budget estimation, scope
definition, schedule estimation, roles and responsibilities allocation, communication
and planning among others (Leavitt, n.d.).
 Execution of the Project: During this phase, the strategies and plans are put in gears.
The development and design activities for the project are carried out based on the
methodology and approach which has been finalized.
 Project allied controls: In this phase, project related controls as well as monitoring
activities to monitor the project are put in action. Furthermore, testing activities
associated with the project are carried out. Also, validation, testing and corrective
measures if any discrepancy has been found is also carried out in this phase.
5

Project Management
 Closure of the Project: During this phase, the lifecycle of the project which includes
closure report development, deliverable acceptance and sign-offs if any and the
preparation of final documentation.
The above given phases need to be included by Lisanne as well as her team for the growth of
their ambitious project under MAC. As mentioned previously, there were several pitfalls
associated with the Dreamline 787 and Airbus A380 project which ended up costing them
heavily and the same can be avoided if sticking to best practices.
 Planning is an essential and the most significant task associated with project
management. Planning activities needs to be carried out in a way that all estimates as
well as approaches received are essentially adequate (Turner, 2006).
 The expectations need to be realistic and needs to be promised and set towards the
client of the project. These expectations need to be put on the basis of feasibility
studies as well as project related specifications that has been given by the client
(Chanda and Ray, 2015).
 Risk assessment as well as management are among the key activities which needs to
be executed only during the initiations and planning phases only. This activity ensures
that all project related risks are highlighted and an appropriate risk response is
mapped. There are number of risks that can be associated with MAC and the same
needs to be mapped with appropriate risk treatment strategies. The risk treatment
strategy can include either risk mitigation, risk transfer, risk acceptance or even risk
avoidance. Such activities include project team in dealing with any kind of situation
during the entire lifecycle of the project (Leavitt, n.d.).
 The project would tend to include several resources in the team and it could give rise
to several inter-personal disputes and conflicts. Such situations could be required in
order to manage by using essential strategies and approach.
 The top-level management should never cease to execute essential control and
monitoring process as inspections, walkthroughs and reviews. The same should be
carried out in regular intervals throughout the lifecycle of the project. This will
highlight any deviation of the project.
Lisanne could also make use of some advanced ICT based tools that help in project
management. These tools include advanced teleconferencing an communication tools such as
Skype for Business, GoMeeting for whiteboarding, task management tools such as Podio and
6

Project Management
Asana and Microsoft Visio for Graphs and Annotation, Microsoft Sharepoint for internal
notification and updates, Adobe Acrobat for document creation and Alfresco for document
management systems. Using a combination of these tools, the entire project management will
be improved further leading to better communication, management and execution of projects.
Conclusion
As mentioned, there are several failure and success reasons for any project. However, if the
project is large, complex and especially of international standard, it is essential to follow
highly successful and globally accepted best practices to execute and manage the project. The
report presented the issues associated with two of the largest Aircraft projects of the last
decade so that the same learnings can be applied to MAC. MAC or Murasaki Aircraft
Corporation is a business which produces regional jets and simultaneously Lisanne, who is
the CEO of MAC is aiming to expand their business. The project needs to stick with five
standard phases of the project mentioned earlier. Apart from this, risk assessment, project
planning, management, having an effective control and monitoring, an adequate resource
selection as well as having a realistic set of project expectations. Similarly, the project
manager also holds a very critical importance in the entirety of the success of such projects.
7

Project Management
Reference
Amalraj, J. (2007). Project Management: Challenges & Lessons Learned. Retrieved 30
October 2017, from
http://www.beg.utexas.edu/energyecon/ua_2007/AB_Project_Mgt_challenges.pdf
Bbc. (2012). Factfile: Airbus A380. BBC News. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11693164
Dorfler, I., & Baumann, O. (2014). Learning from a Drastic Failure: The Case of the Airbus
A380 Program. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13662716.2014.910891
Airbus announces A380 delay. (2006). Reinforced Plastics, 50(7), p.8.
Carter, N. (1988). The Project Manager: An Emerging Professional. Journal of Information
Systems Management, 5(4), pp.8-14.
Chanda, S. and Ray, S. (2015). Learning from Project Failure: Globalization Lessons for an
MNC. Thunderbird International Business Review, 58(6), pp.575-585.
Chen, H. (2015). Performance measurement and the prediction of capital project
failure. International Journal of Project Management, 33(6), pp.1393-1404.
Dvir, D., Sadeh, A. and Malach-Pines, A. (2006). Projects and Project Managers: The
Relationship between Project Managers' Personality, Project Types, and Project
Success. Project Management Journal, 37(5), pp.36-48.
Leavitt, A. (n.d.). Becoming a project manager.
Mascia, A. (2014). Project manager: leader, influencer e conflict manager. PROJECT
MANAGER (IL), (20), pp.19-23.
Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the project management body of knowledge.
Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, USA.
Turner, J. (2006). Towards a theory of project management: The nature of the project
governance and project management. International Journal of Project Management,
24(2), pp.93-95.
8

Project Management
9