Fire fighting in aerospace product development : a study of project capacity and resource planning in an aerospace enterprise

Abstract

It is broadly recognized in the aerospace industry, as well as many others, that organizations which effectively execute development projects to meet desired cost, schedule, and performance targets for their customers produce higher levels of customer satisfaction and also a significant source of competitive advantage. Continually meeting the needs of the customer through effective project execution allows a company to become a preferred supplier favored in source selection for follow-on contracts and new development projects necessary for business growth. This research effort examines one aerospace company, which has multiple, diverse development projects on-going at any one time across several business units. The motivation for this thesis is to explore the product/system development capacity of the enterprise by analyzing the historical program performance of major projects, understanding the level of problem projects or fire fighting within the project pipeline, and the perceived causes of poor project performance. In addition, system dynamics models are developed to analyze the dynamics associated with project planning and resource planning strategies for both multi-project and single project scenarios. This analysis provides insight into the potential for project pipeline "tipping" and the effects of various project management and resource planning strategies in an aerospace product/system development context. Such analysis is believed to provide greater insight and opportunity to improve the product/system development performance for the enterprise.