Manuel E. Sosa

Steven D. Eppinger

Craig M. Rowles

Companies that design complex, highly engineered products all have their horror stories. Ford and Bridgestone Firestone lost billions of dollars after their failure to coordinate the vehicle design of the Ford Explorer with the design of its tires. Similarly, Airbus’s development of the A380 “superjumbo” suffered major delays and cost overruns because of late emerging incompatibilities in the design of the electrical harnesses of various sections of the plane’s fuselage. These mistakes probably contributed to the loss of Airbus’s CEO and to important changes in the management of the A380 program.

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Reprint: R0711J
Communication may not be on managers&#8217; minds at companies that design complex, highly engineered products, but it should be. When mistakes take place, it&#8217;s often because product-component teams fail to talk. The consequences can be huge: Ford and Bridgestone Firestone lost billions by not coordinating the design of the Explorer with the design of its tires. The major delays and cost overruns involved in the development of Airbus&#8217;s A380 &#8220;superjumbo&#8221;&#8212;which most likely led to the CEO&#8217;s exit&#8212;were a result of unforeseen design incompatibilities.
To help managers mitigate such problems, the authors present a new application of the design structure matrix, a project management tool that maps the flow of information and its impact on product development. Drawing on research into how Pratt &#038; Whitney handled the development of the PW4098 jet engine, they have developed an approach that uncovers (a) areas where communication should be occurring but is not (unattended interfaces, usually bad) and (b) areas where communication is occurring but has not been planned for (unidentified interfaces, usually good).
After finding the unattended and unidentified interfaces, the next step is to figure out the causes of the critical ones. If a significant number of unattended interfaces cross organizational boundaries, executives may need to redraw organizational lines. Executives can then manage the remaining critical interfaces by extending the responsibilities of existing integration teams (those responsible for cross-system aspects, such as a jet engine&#8217;s fuel economy) to include supervising the interaction, by dedicating teams to specific interfaces, or by formally charging teams already involved with the interfaces to oversee them. Finally, it&#8217;s important to ensure that the teams are working with compatible design equipment; inconsistencies between CAD tools have cost Airbus dearly.

Are Your Engineers Talking to One Another When They Should?

Reprint: R0711J Communication may not be on managers’ minds at companies that design complex, highly engineered products, but it should be. When mistakes take place, it’s often because product-component teams fail to talk. The consequences can be huge: Ford and Bridgestone Firestone lost billions by not coordinating the design of the Explorer with the design of its tires. The major delays and cost overruns involved in the development of Airbus’s A380 “superjumbo”—which most likely led to the CEO’s exit—were a result of unforeseen design incompatibilities. To help managers mitigate such problems, the authors present a new application of the design structure matrix, a project management tool that maps the flow of information and its impact on product development. Drawing on research into how Pratt & Whitney handled the development of the PW4098 jet engine, they have developed an approach that uncovers (a) areas where communication should be occurring but is not ( unattended interfaces , usually bad) and (b) areas where communication is occurring but has not been planned for ( unidentified interfaces , usually good). After finding the unattended and unidentified interfaces, the next step is to figure out the causes of the critical ones. If a significant number of unattended interfaces cross organizational boundaries, executives may need to redraw organizational lines. Executives can then manage the remaining critical interfaces by extending the responsibilities of existing integration teams (those responsible for cross-system aspects, such as a jet engine’s fuel economy) to include supervising the interaction, by dedicating teams to specific interfaces, or by formally charging teams already involved with the interfaces to oversee them. Finally, it’s important to ensure that the teams are working with compatible design equipment; inconsistencies between CAD tools have cost Airbus dearly.

Are Your Engineers Talking to One Another When They Should?

Summary.

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