Aviation Week A&D Programs and A&D Supply Chain Conference

Featuring the Program Excellence Seminar

Nov 2-4, 2009

Biltmore Hotel, Phoenix, AZ

Lee Cheshire, VC of Programs PMI A&D SIG/COP

Two of our Aerospace and Defense (A&D) Board members attended this year’s conference in Phoenix at the historic Biltmore Hotel. This conference is one of the most prestigious A&D yearly conferences in the nation. The Keynote address, “Reshaping Defense Acquisition,” was presented by Brett Lambert, Director of Industrial Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense/AT&L and he discussed a number of key issues the new administration was working along with new budgeting priorities, global issues, and the Quadrennial Defense Review. Program Management performance will be a key determiner in the future of what programs will continue to be funded according to Brett. He outlined how acquisition reform seeks to reward the “rule of reason” and pragmatic execution of defense programs. He spoke about Secretary Gates program decisions applying the following priorities:

  1. Strategic priorities supporting the forces at war. MRAP would be fully funded while FCS cancelled it manned vehicles and national missile defense would decline but continue.
  2. Force structure programs where F-35 and LCS were to continue.
  3. Acquisition reform and improving program management
  4. Industrial base where support would be provided if a technology industrial base was in jeopardy.

Figure 1. Speaker at the Aviation Week Aerospace and Defense Conference

Figure 2 Broad AttendanceAcross the A&D Industry

Regina Dugan, Director of DARPA, also spoke and discussed the priorities of developing new technologies where exotic programs have lost favor. Key technologies of the future included networks in the sky, web based analysis capabilities, and thinking out of the box approaches to reaching the forces on the ground with critical knowledge will be leading areas of research. She addressed the future problems of filtering massive amounts of data and culling out essential knowledge. New exotic approaches in these areas will be considered along with more traditional approaches.

Two additional spoke early on the first day and included Mike Ryschkewitsch, Chief Engineer of NASA and Rick Day, SVP of Operations with the FAA. The talks included the key strategic plans of both organizations over the next 5-10 years.

Figure 3 Many Sponsors from Commercial, Defense, Education, and PMI

One of the most interesting talks was the early afternoon program and reviewed the Top Aerospace & Defense programs 2009 – 2018. Booz & Co.’s Dr Eric Kronnenberg was the moderator of the session. The value top line 25 programin A&D in the next 10 years was worth up to $1.5 trillion. Defense is only about 11% of the A&D market. Of the top 25 programs, there are only 7 defense programs and the F-35 was the highest as number 9. Presentations and data are available on the Aviation Week Web site ( The vugraphsof this presentation lists the programs in priority order based on production value. Airbus A319/ A320/A321/NSR was number one at ~$250B followed by three Boeing programs one of which is the 787. These three programs are worth ~$630B. From a financial perspective, Aerospace is the “big brother” of the A&D Sector.

There were two tracks the next day, commercial and defense, then combined track on Program Excellence in the afternoon. PMI is a sponsor of the conference and it was exciting hearing all the talks center around Project/Program Management leadership, skills, processes, and tools. Risk management, schedule, and weekly earned value were often discussed in detail including how the Aviation Week Program Excellence Awards were selected. Many of the top programs and winners presented later in the week and shared lessons learned and application tricks in program areas such as IPT structures, team development, schedule management with PERT, and risk management with the supplier partners. Tekt time and Dr. Eli Goldratt’s,theory of constraints (principles of bottle necks) were also applied directly to programs during execution with outstanding results .

I was asked to attend a side Program Executive meeting of about 50 selected program management experts. A six sigma/lean process was employed with 6 teams answering key program management questions, prioritizing them and reporting back to the larger group. This session was run sponsored by PriceWaterhouse Coopers and Aviation Week. Here were some of the questions.

  1. It appears that most successful programs are using a standardized set of basic processes and metrics.
  2. What prevents lower-performing programs fromadopting these processes/practices and how can the PM community address it?
  3. We are not seeing a strong domination of breakthrough ideas or practices that differentiate average from excellent performance – why and how can we work together to develop the next breakthroughs?
  4. Questions about how to improve performance of a globally dispensed team with key suppliers and partners.
  5. Programs are now routinely employing lean/six sigma so how do we continue to improve productivity and what are the barriers to do so.
  6. As a program leader, what do you perceive to be the biggest nightmares, issues we face?

This was a fascinating session with experienced participants and leaders from all over the A&D Industry, universities, and government. The results suggested focus on the following areas for program execution improvements in the near future.

  • Leadership and development of leaders more based on military models. Need not just management education but real experience through an apprentice program. Integrated Product Team (IPT) leads could be used for a training ground.
  • Improvement was needed at program start-up and the transition from the bid plan to the contract plan.
  • Risk identification was an area needing improvement as well as IMP/IMS development.
  • Large and global organizations need to be aligned and provided incentives. Cultural transparency was considered an imperative along with a partnering attitude with major subcontractors. Better collaborative tool sets were needed like Twitter and Facebook.
  • Lean was needed in engineering and the supply chain, not just manufacturing.
  • Night mares included unethical behaviors, skill and experience drains, rough customers, unanticipated changes and unstable funding.

The last day split the session into program execution and supply chain metrics. Best practices in measuring program performance and early phase risks, issues, opportunities and setting the plan were addressed by panels which included presentations. The conference ended on case studies of excellence in program and supply chain execution.

This conference is an outstanding venue for A&D PMP practitioners and will be a targeted next year for our PMI A&D SIG/COP for sponsorship and advertisement.