Challenge of Innovation in Complex Projects †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Challenge of Innovation in Complex Projects. Answer: Introduction: Boeing is worlds biggest manufacturer of defense, space and commercial aircrafts; it has a very strong history of presence in the aviation sector. Its plane or service is spread over 150 countries(Boeing 2017). Boeing also provides freight support and around 90% of the freight lanes are supplied by Boeing. Innovation is in the trend of Boeing and it always looks for creating something new to provide more comfort to passengers with less cost. The project 787 Dreamliner was conceptualized to commercialize aero plane, its main body is made of composite martial rather than aluminum which has resulted in reduction of weight and the 20% increase in fuel efficiency(Allworth 2013). With such offer in conceptual design stage has created many investments to book order for 787 Dreamliner. The boing team was so enthusiastic regarding saving time and money that they decided to outsource the design and manufacturing of many parts to other vendors and by doing so, Boeing was able to cut the cost from $7.3 billion to $4.2 billion and the time by 2 years(Okaily 2013). Few major problems raised during and after the development phase of the aircraft are: The development phase was purely dependent on numerous vendors or suppliers for various Tier-1 parts assembly too and few particular systems like batteries, electrical framework and so forth which were not provided with required quality and in time, so because of complex store network administrations it got postponed. Initial dead line for the commercialization conveyance was May 2008, yet it endured around 3 years of delay and could get quality was passed by AAA in August 2011, so Boeing had to pay tremendous penalty of around $ 4 Billion. The main reason behind the problem was not only the outsourcing but the local assemblies. Traditionally, Boeing used to buy items from outside vendors, but the hard core assembly of Tier-1 was the only responsibility of Boeing itself, but in this 787 Dreamliner project they left the assembly portion too along with vendors. Wrong selection of Vendors: Without checking the vendors capability of doing the job the Dreamliner, Boeing had to place the orders. But in doing so Boeing lost his control over the manufacturing and assembly processes, and this is the real cause of todays accident. Unlike Toyota, it also depends solely to small manufacture To create airplane with cost cutting, Boeing needed to neglect the claim developed by in house innovation as exhorted by specialized master and search for outsourcing and it was the real reason for its disappointment. As per the author (Gates 2013), the electrical batteries, battery chargers and even the electric panel is supplied with very low quality material which can break any moment of time. With traditional approach of developing the aircraft, Boeing required $7.3 billion with 4 years, but they looked for some innovative approach of supply chain and reduced the planned cost to $4.2 billion and time within 2 years, but actually the development cost incurred by Boeing took more than $11 billion and the time of completion around 4 years from the planned date. Now let us evaluate the ways it could have been prevented are as follow: Project Life Cycle Planning Since one same size cannot fit the entire requirement, so separate Project Life Cycle Planning need to be done for every different project(Shenhar et al. 2016). All the related stages Define, Planning, Execution and Closing should have been discussed and planed, then surely while conducting the process Stakeholder Management and Resource Acquisition these issues would have come up. So an integrated life cycle planning could have provided few more information and loss could have reduced. Proper experienced person should have been recruited at right time to provide proper guidance on the procedure to select supplier, mange supplier and close procurement stages(Okaily 2013). Any experienced Project Manager would have predicted the situation well before by using various project management evaluation techniques and accordingly preventive steps could have been taken to prevent loss or penalty. As Boeing has crashed the schedule from 4 years to 2 years along with the cost from $ 7.3 to $ 4.2 billion, but as per triple constraints time/schedule, cost/resources and scope/quality are interlinked to each other. Any impact on one of the factor has its effect on other two(Program Success 2011). So, if the time and cost both decreases then quality/scope is bound to be decreased, exactly the case happened in Boeing. The quality of material supplied by suppliers are very poor specially the electrical system package. By taking proper step in which an integrated planning approach was required to be conducted to know the relationship between the cycles of project management, any cycle should not mix with the other. All the project needs are required to be aligned with the organizations strategy to suit the culture of the organization, otherwise full support of team cannot be obtained and such similar case could have been prevented. Organization Strategy need to be aligned with Project Strategy Proper planning was lacking in Boeing 787 project, otherwise the proper documentation of SWOT (Strength, Weak, Opportunity and Threat) analysis is must. Good analysis of SWOT can provide all kind of alarms well in advance and such big loss could have been prevented. First of all untrusted suppliers were awarded the design, manufacture and who do not even understand all the project management terminology. So in that case if cancellation of job awarded is not possible, then they must be provided proper training to take care of the responsibility assigned on them and always conduct shop visits frequently to control the job statuses. The contract agreement between the supplier and Boeing should have been done in such a manner that the risk of failure can be shared by both and the deadline of submissions too should be mentioned in the contract itself with strong penalty clauses. Such proper sharing of risk could have made supplier more concerned about the project and could have delivered the systems earlier than the current situation. Conclusion After conducting the above study it can be concluded that the main reason behind the failure of Boeing 787 Dreamliner project is the outsourcing of design, manufacture and assembly to outside suppliers who had no or very less such past experiences and this resulted in losing control over the design and manufacturing stages of development. Moreover the contract with supplier must have been developed after giving much more considerations on risk sharing approach. The internal stakeholders issue or concern was overlooked and Boeing had to pay few billion dollars as penalty, so all team members comments need to be listen and evaluated which was not the case when accident took place. References Allworth, J 2013, The 787s Problems Run Deeper Than Outsourcing, viewed 20 August 2017, https://hbr.org/2013/01/the-787s-problems-run-deeper-t. Boeing 2017, Boeing in Brief, viewed 21 August 2017, https://www.boeing.com/company/general-info/. Gates, D 2013, Boeing 787s problems blamed on outsourcing, lack of oversight , viewed 20 August 2017. Okaily, M 2013, Boeing 787 dreamliner project lessson learned, viewed 21 August 2017, https://www.slideshare.net/farrag123456/boeing-787-dreamliner-project-lessson-learned. Program Success 2011, Scope, Time and Cost Managing the Triple Constraint, viewed 20 August 2017, https://programsuccess.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/scope-time-and-cost-managing-the-triple-constraint/. Shenhar, A, Holzmann, V, Melamed, B Zhao, Y 2016, 'The challenge of innovation in highly complex projects', Project Management Journal, vol 47, no. 2, pp. 62-78.