Lessons Learned: Airbus A380, Boeing 787 for MAC's Expansion Project

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of international project management, focusing on lessons learned from the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner projects to inform the expansion plans of Murasaki Aircraft Corporation (MAC). The report details the failures of the Airbus A380 project, highlighting software compatibility issues, lack of member identity, poor unit integration, and conflict tolerance. It also analyzes Boeing 787's issues, including outsourcing and inadequate project control. The report emphasizes the importance of project management phases (initiation, planning, execution, control, and closure), realistic expectations, and risk assessment, concluding with key learnings for MAC's growth ambition project, stressing the need for meticulous planning, risk management, and effective project control. The report provides insights to help MAC avoid similar pitfalls and ensure the success of its future projects. The report is available on Desklib, a platform for students to access past papers and solved assignments.

International Projects – project management

Project Management
Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................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
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Introduction
Murasaki Aircraft Corporation (MAC) is a Japanese aircraft manufacturer that is relatively
new in business. The parent company of MAC is Murasaki Heavy Industries (MHI) with
64% of shares and also has Toyota Motor Corporation (10%) and Mitsubishi Corporation
(10%) and Sumitomo Corporation and Mitsui & Co with minor shares. The company is
currently producing regional jets and Lisanne, the CEO of MAC is now aspiring to expand
the business. The next set of business activities would include medium sized passenger jets
which would enhance the business operations and activities to another level.
Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner are the two international projects in the same field
that can impart the required level of management knowledge to Lisanne and her team. There
were many correct and incorrect activities that were carried out in these two projects which
can act as a good source of reference for the project that will be carried out at MAC.
The report includes the positive and negative aspects associated with the two projects and
also includes the key learning that may be adapted by MAC.
Lessons Learned – Airbus A380
Airbus is a company that was found in the year 1970 with the major objectives as integration
of existing European aircraft sites for establishing advanced and modern manufacturing and
production capabilities. Currently, there are over 57,000 employees that are engaged with
Airbus.
Airbus A380 is one of the large scale projects that was undertaken by the company and was
initiated in the year 2000. The aim of the project was to design a super-jumbo jet capable of
carrying 853 passengers and crew. The launch date of the project was set up in 2002 (Bbc,
2012).
At the same time, it was decided that an administrative re-structuring would be carried out at
the company which would include the re-location of the top management from different sites
at a common site. It was aimed that such a process would result in minimization of conflicts
and would lead to adequate and effective management as a result (Rochfort, 2006).
In 2005, there were a number of production issues that began to crop up. This led to the
inability to meet the delivery deadlines and the French and German production facilities
started the blame game instead of the resolution of the issue. In the year 2006, wiring harness
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produced in Hamburg plant failed to install while the plane was in the assembly stage in the
Toulouse plant.
CATIA is a software which is commonly used in the aircraft industry and it was found out
that an older version of the software was used in the Hamburg plant. However, the latest
version was used in the Toulouse plant. This led to the compatibility issues which led to the
failure in the installation process. As a result, the deliveries were postponed and it became
necessary to design the wiring system. This led to the delay of two years and the cost also
exceeded by 6 billion dollars.
It is assumed that the primary reason behind the failure was the software compatibility issues.
However, there were a number of problems and mistakes that were carried out by the project
management team that contributed as the prime reason of failure of the project (Dorfler &
Baumann, 2014).
There are certain project management phases and guidelines that are required to be followed
in each of the projects. The relevance of such guidelines and characteristics increases with the
nature of the project. For instance, in case of Airbus A380, it was an international project
with a lot of significance. The following characteristics were required to be maintained in the
project which went missing.
 Member Identity: It is the project management characteristic that makes sure that each
member identifies with the roles and responsibilities in the project and places his or
her selfish interests at the least priority. However, in the case of Airbus A380, the
members failed to identify with the project goals and placed their personal benefits at
the top.
 Unit Integration: There are several units and departments that function in an
organization that need to integrate with each other for the success of an organization’s
venture. However, this characteristics was missing in the case of Airbus A380 (Shore,
2009).
 Conflict Tolerance: There were a lot many conflicts that were observed at the top
management level that were not resolved at the advanced project stages which led to
the project failure.
Also, the software compatibility issues that were encountered could have been detected
earlier in the project execution and project control stages. Software testing is an essential
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activity that is required to be carried out and the effective monitoring and control from the
project managers could have also made sure that the issue was detected in a timely manner.
Lessons Learned – Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Boeing is an American multi-national organization that deals in the designing, manufacturing
and production of airplanes, rockers and satellites. The company has over 160,000 employees
engaged with it.
Boeing began the development of 787 Dreamliner in the year 2003; however, the project
suffered from numerous project failures and risks in the areas of schedule and budget
overrun.
The estimated cost of the project was USD 5 billion which exceeded to over USD 17-23
billion (Elahi, Sheikhzadeh & Lamba, 2012).
There were numerous reasons that contributed in the failure of the project. The technical
experts advised the project team to stick to the traditional methods of manufacturing and
design. However, in an attempt to bring down the costs, the company decided to outsource
many of the project tasks. This went against the project and led to the budget overrun
(Mseitif, 2014).
The overall management that was applied in the project was also not adequate. There are
primarily two lessons that can be learnt from the case study of Boeing Dreamliner.
 Project Management is a discipline that is required to be included in the project. There
are certain phases and guidelines that have been defined that must be followed so that
the decision making processes and abilities are adequate.
 The significance of project control is extremely high as it assists in the verification
and validation of the project tasks and activities. The required project control was
missing in the case of Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This is because of the outsourcing of
numerous tasks which brings down the level of monitoring and control that can be
applied (Tang & Zimmerman, 2009).
 It is necessary to carry out feasibility studies and take into consideration the remarks
and comments that are provided by the experts. In the case of Boeing 787 Dreamliner,
the management did not take into consideration the advice that was provided by the
team of technical experts. This led to the incorrect decision making which ultimately
led to project failure.
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Key Learnings for MAC’s Growth Ambition Project
Project Management is one of the most significant and necessary activities that are required
to be carried out in case of project. The significance of adequate project management further
increases in international projects and activities.
There are five phases that are included in any of the project management methodologies that
is applied.
These phases are as listed below.
 Initiation Phase: It is the phase in which the high-level project details are specified
and the feasibility studies are carried out on different aspects. Some of these aspects
include technical, economical, operational and environmental. The result of the
feasibility studies is then analyzed to come up with the decision to proceed with the
project activities or not.
 Planning Phase: This is one of the most important phases of project management in
which the project plans are developed and implemented. There are several tasks that
are required to be carried out in this phase as project budget estimation, schedule
estimation, scope definition, allocation of roles and responsibilities, risk assessment
and communication planning (Newton, 2015).
 Project Execution: This is the phase in which all the plans and strategies are brought
in action. The design and development activities are carried out in this phase as per
the approach and methodology that is finalized.
 Project Control: This is the phase in which monitoring and control activities are
carried out by the management along with the implementation of the project. The
project testing activities along with execution of the reviews and inspection processes
in order to validate and verify the correctness of the project tasks and activities are
included in this phase.
 Project Closure: This is the last phase in the project life cycle that includes the
development of the closure report, acceptance of the deliverables and sign offs along
with the final documentation.
The above five phases shall be included by Lisanne and her team in the growth ambition
project that will be carried out at MAC. There were a number of pitfalls that were associated
with Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner. These pitfalls and drawbacks can be avoided
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by sticking to the best practices and including the following key learning in the project
activities that are carried out.
 Planning will be one of the most significant tasks that will be associated with the
project. The planning activities shall be carried out in such a manner that the estimates
and approach that are received are adequate (Amalraj, 2007).
 There shall be realistic expectations that must be set and promised to the project
client. These expectations shall be based upon the results of the feasibility studies,
project specifications provided by the client along with the project resources.
 Risk assessment and management is one of the key activities that need to be carried
out during the project in the initiation and planning stages only. This activity must
make sure that all of the project risks are listed and highlighted and the risk response
is also mapped with every risk. There may be a number of different risks that may
emerge during MAC’s growth ambition project in the form of technical risks, security
risks, schedule and budget risks, resource risks etc. All of these risks shall be
determined and assessed in advance in terms of the response strategy that shall be
applied in order to deal with the same. The response strategy shall include risk
mitigation, risk acceptance, risk avoidance or risk transfer. Such an activity will keep
the project team to deal with any situation during the project life cycle (Shariff, 2013).
 The project will include a lot many resources in the project team which may bring up
the situation of conflicts and disputes. These situations will be required to be managed
by making use of adequate strategy and approach.
 The top management must never fail to execute the monitoring and control processes
in the form of reviews, inspections and walkthroughs. These processes must be
carried out at regular intervals to determine the project progress and to highlight any
of the deviations.
Conclusion
There can be a number of success and failure reasons that may be associated with the
projects. In case of international projects, it becomes essential to make sure that the project
success is achieved by sticking to the set of best practices and standards. Also, project
management is a discipline that must be followed in the projects to ensure that the success is
ensured. Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner are the two international projects in the
field of aircrafts that can impart the required level of management knowledge to similar large
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scale international projects. There were many correct and incorrect activities that were carried
out in these two projects which can act as a good source of reference.
Murasaki Aircraft Corporation (MAC) is a company that is currently producing regional jets
and Lisanne, the CEO of MAC is now aspiring to expand the business. The next set of
business activities would include medium sized passenger jets which would enhance the
business operations and activities to another level. The project must stick to the five phases of
the project management process which include initiation, planning, execution, control and
closure phases. Project planning, risk assessment and management, setting up of realistic
project expectations, adequate resource selection and allocation along with effective
monitoring and control shall be followed in the project. The role of senior management along
with the Project Manager also holds a critical importance in the case of such projects.
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Reference
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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
Elahi, E., Sheikhzadeh, M., & Lamba, N. (2012). "An Integrated Outsourcing Framework:
Analyzing Boeing’s Outsourcing Program for Dreamliner (B787).
Scholarworks.umb.edu. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://scholarworks.umb.edu/msis_faculty_pubs/26/
Mseitif, J. (2014). Boeing’s Behavior in a Liberalized Marketplace: The 787 Dreamliner
Project and Impact on Puget Sound Workers. Digital.lib.washington.edu. Retrieved 30
October 2017, from https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/
1773/26912/Mseitif_washington_0250O_13381.pdf;sequence=1
Newton, P. (2015). Principles of Project Management. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://www.free-management-ebooks.com/dldebk-pdf/fme-project-principles.pdf
Rochfort, S. (2006). Delay issues cloud A380 visit - Business - Business - smh.com.au.
Smh.com.au. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/delay-issues-cloud-a380-visit/
2006/11/28/1164476179330.html
Shariff, S. (2013). Assessment of Project Management Skills and Learning Outcomes in
Students’ Projects. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042813020363/pdf?
md5=16f498b0203d44eb0bb95f5b83d90b6f&pid=1-s2.0-S1877042813020363-
main.pdf
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Shore, B. (2009). Airbus A380 - Project Failure Lessons Learned.
Globalprojectstrategy.com. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
http://globalprojectstrategy.com/lessons/case.php?id=23
Tang, C., & Zimmerman, J. (2009). Managing New Product Development and Supply Chain
Risks: The Boeing 787 Case. Retrieved 30 October 2017, from
https://eng.umd.edu/~austin/ense622.d/lecture-resources/Boeing787-
Outsourcing2009.pdf
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