Aerospace Sheetmetal Design - a DPC Success Story

By Jim Strawn, Cessna Aircraft Co.

The Aerospace Sheetmetal Design application first introduced in V4.1.9 was an initial attempt to address the Hydroformed Sheetmetal Design process. I joined the Composites and Sheetmetal DPC in 1998 as a co-chair, covering the sheetmetal processes, both Aerospace Sheetmetal, and Bending products. Over the course of the next four years, Dassault Systemes did not introduce any major enhancements to this product. We submitted a number of enhancement requests during this period, but no new developments were being performed in V4. In the spring of 2000, our Dassault Systemes domain leader started sharing his vision for the future of this product in the V5 world. In our DPC working meetings, we started to discuss the future, listed the previous enhancement requests, and provided further descriptions of these requests. In 2002, with the release of V5R9, the new Aerospace Sheetmetal product became available on a controlled basis. Dassault Systemes listened, and when the product becomes generally available in V5R10, we will close the first three of our outstanding SERs, and the remaining four will follow with future releases.

"I don't care about being the first. What I care about is being the best."
- Bernard Charles, President, Dassault Systemes

Effectively Shaping the Strategy of an Organization, Initiative, or Program from a Project Manager Perspective

By Shelley Gaddie, President, Project Corps

Projects are most effectively planned and delivered when anchored in a governing strategic plan. Project managers are often put in a position where the scope and objectives of a project are, at best, informally linked to a strategy. The loose association between a project and its governing strategy can create an environment where obtaining resource commitments are difficult, scope and requirements frequently change, or competing projects continually appear. The project manager possesses the data and knowledge to shape an organization's strategy. Using four key techniques, founded in the principles of enterprise project management, a project manager can establish a meaningful connection to a governing strategy, stabilize the project environment, and ultimately deliver the project successfully.

Symptoms of the Missing Link between Project and Strategy
There are numerous symptoms project managers experience when there is a missing link between the project and its governing strategy. Some of the more common symptoms include projects that are perceived as solutions in search of a problem, continually changing or unclear project requirements, and the emergence of redundant, related, or competing projects. These symptoms are mitigated when the project is firmly anchored in a strategy. For example:

• When a project is perceived as a solution in search of a problem, stakeholders have no apparent commitment to the project's success. Because of this lack of commitment, it is difficult to get firm resource commitments or focused participation in defining a project's objectives, scope, and requirements. A governing strategy will provide stakeholders with compelling benefits and reasons to make a commitment to the project's success.
• When project requirements continually change or are unclear, it indicates that project stakeholders and team members do not have common agreement on the project's overall purpose. A governing strategy provides that purpose and becomes a reference from which requirements are defined.
• When competing or redundant projects continue to appear, it indicates broad recognition of a challenge that needs to be solved with a lack of agreement across departments on how to best pursue the solution. A governing strategy defines the relationship between multiple projects, provides clarity around authority and responsibilities, and ensures that multiple projects can work in alignment instead of competition. This sets the foundation for what most organizations would consider a program or initiative.

Techniques for Project Managers to Anchor their Projects in a Governing Strategy
There are four major techniques that provide a project manager with the ability to anchor their projects in a governing strategy:

1. Create strategic objectives if they are absent. Validate that project objectives fit into strategic objectives if a strategy does exist.
When a project's scope, requirements, or objectives are in question, strategic objectives serve as the starting reference point to establish common ground among stakeholders and team members. If the strategic objectives are nonexistent or the link between strategic and functional objectives is unclear, the first step for the project manager is to work with the project sponsor to establish a preliminary link (figure 1 below).

Figure 1 - The connection between strategic and functional objectives.

2. Package project visibility and reporting for a strategic viewpoint.
A project manager has the best data and knowledge to effectively shape an organization's strategy. The challenge for the project manager is in translating the functional data of the project team into the strategic perspective needed by executives. The majority of external project visibility and reporting is tailored to progress towards project milestones. The milestones more often represent functional objectives of the project rather than speaking to an overall strategy. To establish the project's connection to a strategy, the project manager must translate traditional project measures into an executive strategic perspective. If you are in the middle of a project, this technique provides the most immediate benefits. For example, a technical issue at a project level is resolved in terms of how to correct software errors or improve system performance. At a strategic level, that same technical issue is viewed in terms of the ability of the project to achieve benefits within original costs. A project manager who can view technical information and repackage it into a strategic perspective will be able to effectively shape the strategy that governs the relevant projects.

3. Integrate the project data between related projects.
Integrated project data is the cornerstone of program management and enterprise project management. If a formal program management structure does not exist among related projects, establishing integrated project data will provide the most complete view of how the projects are working towards a common objective. Integrated project data becomes the foundation for visibility and reporting across multiple projects. To be effective, the data must be integrated across the scope of the affected initiative, program, or organization. The key components of integrated data are an integrated schedule, a common resource pool, and common issue and risk tracking across projects. This creates a complete, reliable set of data, upon which, effective multi-project reporting can be generated.

4. Establish a continuous cycle from strategic planning to project delivery.
Establishing a continuous cycle provides the strongest, direct connection between projects and their governing strategy. This provides benefits to future projects, but may not provide improvements to projects already in progress. A continuous cycle from strategy to delivery provides organizations with the formal, consistent ability to translate strategic objectives into functional objectives, and functional objectives into projects. For example, a manufacturing company may have a strategic objective of increasing production capacity. A functional objective of increasing production capacity may be to add a second production line. The functional objective is then defined, planned, and executed as a project. Without a formal method of translating strategy to action, project managers, team members, and stakeholders must informally interpret how a strategic objective might translate into a functional objective, and then into a project.

The key elements of an effective planning cycle are:

• Cost/benefit analysis for functional objectives. Functional objectives are the preliminary definitions for projects. The cost/benefit analysis determines whether the project is worth doing before significant funding and resources are committed. If a project proves to be worth doing, the cost/benefit analysis can simplify commitments of funding and resources.
• Formal sponsorship approval for proposed projects. Sponsorship commitment to a project's success is critical moving forward. A formal approval step establishes the commitment up front and creates momentum for getting stakeholders on board for the duration of the project.
• Project prioritization (if multiple projects are being carried out simultaneously). It is often challenging to gain agreement among stakeholders on uniform criteria for prioritizing projects. Prioritization is more often a negotiation to identify the most critical project, other high-priority projects, and other projects that must be completed eventually. Prioritization is necessary to ensure that limited resources are most effectively distributed among multiple projects.
• Formal initiation stage for each project. An effective project initiation ensures that project team members understand their roles and responsibilities, adequate facilities are acquired, and appropriate processes - such as document management - are implemented for the project.

For the planning cycle to be successful, it requires an organization with process discipline and participation across all affected organizations. Once the fundamental elements of a planning cycle are mastered, the next step is to look at ways of increasing the maturity of the planning and execution cycle.

Enterprise Project Management - The Fully Mature Solution for Connecting Strategy to Project Delivery
As an organization improves upon an established cycle from strategy to project delivery, an effective framework for making those improvements is enterprise project management (EPM). EPM is based on the principle that your organization's vision, mission, and objectives are defined and executed as a comprehensive set of integrated projects. The infrastructure and methods of EPM provide executives with a 360-degree view of their organization's capabilities and progress toward objectives.

Figure 2 - Project Corps Enterprise Project Management Framework

There are four primary levels of responsibility in EPM (figure 2 above):

• Executive owners. Has responsibility for the organization's strategy and vision.
• Sponsors. Acts as a bridge between an organization's strategic and functional objectives.
• Project organization. Serves as the steward that maintains integration and alignment between the resources, plans, and schedules of a set of projects. The project organization is commonly referred to as a project office, project management office (PMO), or program office.
• Project teams and resources. The people responsible for executing the objectives and deliverables of projects.

Together, the four primary levels work in complete alignment to define business objectives and to deliver upon those objectives. Planning and execution cycles are defined to provide alignment and continuity from across all levels of the organization. From a responsibility-level perspective, people are presented with a cycle that allows them to perform their work in a consistent, coordinated fashion. From an organization-wide perspective, each responsibility-level cycle connects with the adjacent cycle to provide a complete organization-wide planning and execution cycle.

Conclusion
The challenges that project managers experience in managing projects are often the result of a missing link between the project and a governing strategy. Through the use of four key techniques, the project manager is able to use their first-hand data and knowledge to establish the project's link to its governing strategy, provide stability to the project environment, and ultimately shape executive decisions in defining the strategy. The improved connection, stability, and guidance results in more effectively planned and delivered projects.

Airbus Optimizes Aircraft Product Development with CATIA V5 from IBM and Dassault Systemes

On October 2, 2002, Airbus, IBM, and Dassault Systemes announced that Airbus had successfully completed the first phase of a plan to streamline product development using CATIA V5. The plan to implement CATIA V5, the world's leading computer-aided design, began in September 2000 and will continue over the next three years.

The second phase of the project is underway and includes the installation of more than 2,000 CATIA V5 seats and the integration of Airbus' entire design, development, and manufacturing processes. Airbus is innovating product development with its next-generation aircraft, including the A380 jumbo airliner and A400 military transport plane. The goal is to link once-disparate departments with CATIA's collaborative knowledge management tools empowered with three-dimensional information on products and processes.

In order to implement the latter phase of the project, Airbus also confirms its engagement in services activities with IBM Global Services PLM Business Consulting Services (BCS) practice working with Dassault Systemes. IBM's PLM BCS team will handle integration of CATIA V5 design solutions at Airbus company-wide, including manufacturing centers in France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. The team will also undertake all implementation of the PLM solutions, including integration, training, technical support, data migration services, and customized development for Airbus.

"Deploying common methods and processes based on a common set of tools across the whole entity is a major driver to harmonize the development processes in Airbus," said Rolf-Stefan Scheible, vice-president Airbus Concurrent Engineering (ACE). "This will reduce development time and costs significantly from the very beginning of the project. Another key advantage of the migration to CATIA V5 is that this solution is standard to the entire aerospace and supply industry and provides digital mock-up functions that meet our rigorous demands."

"As the need for more effective aircraft development processes increases, aerospace companies need to increase productivity and efficiency," said Ed Petrozelli, general manager, IBM-PLM. "We are pleased to provide the aerospace industry with innovative and comprehensive product lifecycle management tools and best practices to satisfy the needs of their own customers. IBM product lifecycle management's product portfolio, supported by IBM industry expertise, gives companies like Airbus new tools to support the innovative methods they are developing in order to build better aircraft."

"The ability of Airbus, IBM, and Dassault Systemes to smoothly engineer and implement the transition from legacy systems to new breakthrough technologies has been key to success of the Airbus innovation strategy," said Etienne Droit, executive vice president sales and marketing, Dassault Systemes. "In addition to that cooperation, Airbus productions teams are now increasingly benefiting from Dassault Systemes' 3D product lifecycle management CATIA and DELMIA solutions to work concurrently on digital mock-ups and move forward in parallel in designing, developing, and integrating all parts of an aircraft."