International Project Management: Analyzing Boeing and Airbus Cases

This essay examines the international project management strategies of Boeing and Airbus, two major aircraft manufacturers, to provide lessons for Murasaki Aircraft Corporation (MAC), a new entrant in the market. The analysis focuses on the root causes of project failures, including technical implementation issues at Boeing (e.g., outsourcing, material changes, battery issues) and organizational and management problems at Airbus (e.g., wiring issues, internal disputes, and poor supplier selection). The essay highlights the contrasting approaches of the two companies, Boeing's emphasis on short-term fixes versus Airbus's focus on long-term developments, and their respective outcomes. Recommendations for MAC include the importance of balancing technical upgrades with a strong, cohesive management team that prioritizes quality, avoids internal conflicts, and makes informed decisions. The essay concludes that both effective management and sound technical implementations are crucial for success in the aircraft industry, using the case studies to illustrate the consequences of poor decisions and the importance of learning from past mistakes.

Running Head: INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT
International Project Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Introduction
Murasaki Aircraft Corporation (MAC) is a new aircraft manufacturer that is looking to
enter the medium size passenger jet market even though there is a stiff competition from the
heavyweights like Boeing and Airbus. However, the owner of MAC is not interested in making
the same mistakes both of these companies did and hence, needs to analyze the root causes of the
mistakes so that the same are not repeated in the case of MAC. It has been found that the
businesses of Boeing and Airbus were negatively affected by two separate management
approaches that were initially supposed to be fruitful (Kotha & Srikanth, 2013). While Boeing
was affected by the lack of insight during technical implementation, Airbus was affected by poor
management decisions and internal disputes inside the organization.
In this essay, the cases of Boeing and Airbus have been analyzed in detail in order to find
the root causes of the problems faced by them. Taking the analysis results as lessons, suitable
recommendations have been made for MAC so that they do not repeat the same mistakes as
Boeing and Airbus did.
Analysis and Recommendations for MAC
Airbus and Boeing are both popular aircraft manufacturers that are currently the mostly
used aircrafts around the world. However, the aircrafts from the two companies are different in
nature, structure, capacity and other factors. While Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft is specially
constructed to reduce the overall weight of the aircraft in order to make it easier to fly whereas
Airbus A380 is mainly build for high passenger capacity. According to their operational strategy,
both the companies follow partnering policy i.e. they strike partnership with other companies

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(e.g. aircraft parts manufacturer, interior design, power supply, etc.) (Shenhar, Holzmann,
Melamed & Zhao, 2016). However, this partnering policy has turned out to be problematic and
both of the companies are facing losses rather than profits from this partnering policy. The
partnering policy was mainly implemented in order spread the manufacture defects and risks to
different organizations so that they could be solved easily (Dutton, 2016). However, this policy
was not of much use as the risks have still remained for both the companies as both of them have
different approaches to address the problems. While Boeing 787 Dreamliner mainly emphasized
on short term fixes, Airbus A380 emphasized on long term developments and implemented their
changes slowly on a regular basis (Gokhale, Raghavan & Tremblay, 2014). As a result, A380 has
gained a lot of market in recent times whereas the business of Boeing 787 Dreamliner has fallen
in spite of having efficient lightweight aircrafts. Boeing and Airbus have adopted two entirely
different approaches for business developments that led to different positive and negative
outcomes.
Boeing is one of the oldest aircraft manufacturer that is still active today and until a few
years ago, Boeing relied on their initial aircraft designs that were operational previously. For
some time, it was very popular due to lack of many alternatives. Boeing provided large
passenger capacity (ranging from 350 to 450), had high travel speed and light weight that made it
easy for the pilots to fly though any air condition (Song, Li, Song & Zhang, 2014). When Airbus
came to the market, it became instantly popular due to several reasons. The Airbus A380 was the
largest passenger aircraft the world had even seen (the aircraft could carry up to 840 compared to
only 425 in 787 Dreamliner). Naturally, due to the high capacity, the aircraft had to be of a very
large size as well as to include wider space in the interior than usual. Furthermore, the A380 was
a few times heavier than the 787 Dreamliner and hence, needed efficient control during flight.

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A380 also came with the latest scientific and technical facilities that were miles ahead of 787
Dreamliner. Due to these factors, the Dreamliner faced steep competition from A380 and the
business started to decline (Elahi, Sheikhzadeh & Lamba, 2014). However, after a few years, the
business of A380 also dipped by a significant margin owing to the fact that the flight tickets were
extremely expensive and not all pilots could drive an airbus owing to its size and weight.
Boeing and Airbus took certain initiatives to check the fall and rise again in the market.
Boeing chose to address customer satisfaction issues immediately and started to implement
changes in the interior designs and passenger facilities of the aircrafts. However, this approach
had both positive and negative effects on the business of 787 Dreamliner. The main positive
effect was that the passenger facilities were massively improved resulting in modern technical
facilities that attracted more customers (Al-Najjar et al., 2017). The passenger comfort increased
inside the aircraft and 787 started gaining more passengers. In addition, Boeing also decided to
use different materials for building the body of the aircrafts and order to increase operational
efficiency (Dörfler & Baumann, 2014). The negative outcome of this approach was that due to
the change in the building materials, the running and operational costs also increased
considerably and furthermore, many technical glitches started to appear due to the change in
materials of the aircraft body. These technical faults were not solved as the company rather
focused on providing a customer-friendly experience rather that efficient and safe flight of the
aircrafts. On the other hand, the approach of Airbus was to implement a lot of overall changes in
a short amount of time in order offer passenger comfort as well as implement latest technological
improvements in the overall aircraft (Wright, 2015). These changes initially had a positive
impact on the business of Airbus and the passenger count increased by a significant margin. The
latest technological improvements improved the passenger facilities inside the aircraft and also

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aided the pilots to make safe and efficient flights over large distances. However, problems arose
when sufficient maintenance was done on the aircrafts. Airbus failed to realize that significant
technical improvements also require regular maintenance and monitoring in order to address
implementation faults and failures (Evans, 2015). On the other hand, Airbus implemented so
many changes at such a short amount time, they did not have enough opportunity for
implementation follow up or addressing the errors of the implementation. As a result, in addition
to bearing huge expenses during the implementation phase, the company also started
encountering expenses for delayed maintenance and repair (Kroese, 2014). Some of the common
problems faced by Airbus A380 included lack of electric cabling connections between various
modules of the aircraft to development of aircraft design that was immediately rejected by some
of the regular customers of the company.
Some in-depth analyses have been conducted in order to find the main causes behind the
implementation failures of both Airbus and Boeing. For Boeing, the first main cause behind the
failure was the decision to outsource, both nationally and internationally. It was expected that
outsourcing will reduce their operational costs and will also help to accelerate their development
(Francis, 2016). However, the result was opposite; Boeing lost a lot of money on the outsourcing
and the development project they were conducting took an extra 3 years that further increased
their expenses. In addition, Boeing 787 had many operational problems mainly due to the new
aircraft bodies and the batteries used to power the plan. Removing the aluminium body of the
aircraft, Boeing started using composite material made of aluminium, carbon fiber and titanium
for 787 Dreamliner (Song et al., 2014). Although the composite material increased the overall
weight of the aircraft, the maintenance of internal conditions changed and the craft was more
efficient in maintaining the internal conditions like humidity and temperature (Simons, 2014).

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Furthermore, Boeing switched to lithium ion batteries to power the craft that initially helped the
craft to complete long distance journeys without any requirement of layoffs. However, within
some time, it was found that the aircrafts overheated easily due to the lithium ion batteries as
well as the composite material body. Although no major accidents have been reported, it still
posed a significant risk for the passengers inside the flight (Kleinaltenkamp, Behrens & Reh,
2014). In addition, it has also been found that the lack of coordination between organizations to
whom, Boeing outsourced, was also a major reason for the failure of 787 Dreamliner. Whenever,
any technical faults were reported, the outsourced companies started publicly blaming each other
in order to avoid the responsibilities of such technical faults. On the other hand, the problems
faced by Airbus A380 were mainly rooted to the organizational structure and operations rather
than technical (Efimov, Cieslak, Zolghadri & Henry, 2013). However, there were also reported
many technical failures that were mainly due to the ignorance of the builders’ end.
As evident from the operational policy of Airbus, the company has a number of partners
who supply various parts of the aircraft that are then assorted together to build the aircrafts in the
manufacturing facility. However, at a certain point of time, it was found that Airbus A380 had a
number of technical problems. One of the main problems that were highlighted was the fault in
the electrical connection inside the aircraft as it was found that the electrical wirings of two
different modules inside the craft were not connected. After some in-depth analysis, it was found
that this problem arose because the wiring frame and the wiring harness were manufactured at
different facilities (Shenhar et al., 2016). As a result, the wiring harness did not fit the wiring
frame and hence, the wirings of two modules could not be connected together. When questions
were raised, the two companies who manufactured the frame and the harness started public
dispute. Some researchers also blamed the organizational structure and the stakeholders inside

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the company behind the failure of A380. It was reported that the topmost members of the Airbus
management board remained loyal to a particular group of clients who were always used for
supply of materials and equipments even if much better alternatives were available in the market.
The company was blamed for convoluted management structure that was said to affect the
outcomes of decision making regarding the company’s operations (Kotha & Srikanth, 2013).
Some other researchers also pointed to the internal disputes in the management board that
resulted in delayed and poor decision makings in the operations. In both the cases, the
management team is to be blamed for the failure of the Airbus A380.
Based on the study of both the cases, it has been learned that both management and
technical implementations are necessary for the success of an aircraft company. From Boeing
787 case, it has been learnt that the company should consider the maintenance factor and the
aftereffects of any implementation instead of just emphasizing on immediate impacts for
customer satisfaction (Jansen et al., 2015). From Airbus A380, it has been found that an aircraft
manufacturer should have an efficient and dynamic management system that will always
emphasizing on best quality of supplies rather than relying on some fixed clients whose
standards are either poor or rapidly falling (Efimov et al., 2013). Hence, for MAC, it can be
recommended that in order to enter into direct competition with two powerhouses, it must
emphasize on both technical upgrades and selection of a suitable management team. There
should be no cultural differences in the team as well as no internal disputes. Rather, the
management team should held meetings and collect together different ideas to select the best
possible alternative. For the technical upgrades, the company should not choose the ones for
immediate solution and rather settle for long term settlements.

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Conclusion
Finally, it can be concluded that from the cases of both Airbus and Boeing, several
lessons have been learnt regarding the consequences of poor management decisions and lack of
proper technical implementations in aircraft industry. The business of Airbus has fallen prey to
the poor management system and lack of proper decision making whereas Boeing has fallen prey
to the lack of sufficient insight of the technical implications that might arise in the near future.
MAC should keep in mind these factors and should be careful in the approaches to enter the
aircraft industry. The owner should choose a management team that will not be affected by
cultural diversity and the disputes will be solved mutually by conducting discussion meetings.
For technical implementations and upgrades, the company should proceed with great care and
perform risk analysis before implementation of a particular upgrade.

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