Lessons learned from Airbus A380

As we continue to live in an ever changing world and a more global economy emerges companies are now forced to examine how to global trade.  As organizations continue to source from abroad inventory control and visibility has taken more precedence than ever before.  Near-shore, offshore and outsourced services have caused organizations find ways to control and reduce costs.


If your procurement occurs abroad and so does the manufacturing it is imperative that the right hand know what the left hand is doing.  A solution that supports your business practices of checking supplier quality standards, adherence to regulatory compliance,  adherence to service level agreements, current volume of inventory in the chain, current expected quantity are all factors that require very close vendor collaboration to run smoothly.  Then there is the transportation component and calculations of lead times, customs clearances to deal with, port storage and finally transportation to your warehouse or point of sale locations. 


Organizations are not leveraging technology enough to simplify these processes and make the big picture easier.  A simple web-enabled portal that allows for collaboration between for suppliers can easily be created and leveraged.  As lessons learned from the Airbus project of the A380 the technology didn't fail, it was a people-centric process that failed.  All  the information was available however, non stringent standards such as different versions of supplier softwares being installed on different supplier sites(causing incompatible file types and unnecessary delays), people not checking the portal for new specification changes to materials, tolerances, sizes etc. are factors that could have been avoided if the technology was properly used.  The cause and effect in this scenario was really multiplied because if one manufacturer was delayed this impacted the deadline throughout the chain causing the delay to compound throughout the supply chain and manufacturing process.  


When a portal for trade management is used a central repository can be created, viewed and managed effectively.  Updated specifications, new tolerances and other possible delays can be managed to control the process and adapt to the new deadline which will save time in the end.  If a specification were to change, other dependent manufacturers that had to complete the previous part or add something to to complete that part can be adjusted for by possibly preparing pieces that can be made in parallel or possibly to prepare the material for production to save time when receiving the product.       


In the case of Airbus the individual project managers by each part they were responsible failed to understand how the existing information can be used and how it was used caused delays.  Parts suppliers that changed specs failed to report them using the design software and consequently other dependent processes were caught off guard and were forced to accommodate the changes which led to time delays and project overruns. 


Organizations need to ensure at least one PM is in charge of keeping the big picture together and one that understands the local impacts that are manifested globally throughout the system.  All parts of the project plan must be completed, validated and finally executed.