Complex program management

Nowadays, aerospace and defense (A&D) programs, especially those defined by high capital expenditure, are extremely complex. Program managers have always faced cost, design, integration, and delivery pressures. Today these pressures are typically exacerbated by engineering complexity, technology insertion, global supply chain diversity, and inter-company partnerships. Additionally, volatility is increased by high product variability from customer-required modifications in avionics and electronics, power systems, and interior fittings, together with the need to address the whole-life cycle, including support and product upgrades.

All these dimensions make for complicated control and trade-off decisions, which involve not only the immediate program but the entire organization, its customers, and its constellation of partners and suppliers. The challenge is therefore universal – success is expected while failure is costly and embarrassing.

A&D companies are consequently developing sophisticated management tools and techniques to enable them to deliver programs on time and budget. Integrated program management teams – ideally comprising a mix of business managers, engineers, supply chain and manufacturing representatives, and marketers – are now responsible for controlling programs from concept to production. Resources, activities, stakeholders, and underlying organizational support are managed to ensure the program is developed, controlled, sequenced, and delivered efficiently and effectively.

A.T. Kearney has worked with leading A&D companies to develop expert capabilities in complex program management. Working with the management team, we address all or some of the five key program management areas (see figure below) to ensure the program is coordinated, milestones met, and key deliverables achieved.

Typically, this coordination involves a mix of technical assistance, program management expertise and transformation support. The latter is often needed to help build better coordination, decision-making and effective response across the organization. Additionally, we have employed a “fast-track” capability for joining a program mid-stage to help resolve problems by identifying priorities, dependencies and risks, and creating with the client team a series of quick-recovery responses.