Posted on 10/06/2006 8:42:26 AM PDT by phantomworker
Use of incompatible programs takes the rap, but behind that is a management team cobbled together from formerly separate companies.
It sounds too simple to be true. Airbus' A380 megajet is now a full two years behind schedule--and the reason, CEO Christian Streiff admitted on Oct. 3, is that design software used at different Airbus factories wasn't compatible.
Early this year, when pre-assembled bundles containing hundreds of miles of cabin wiring were delivered from a German factory to the assembly line in France, workers discovered that the bundles, called harnesses, didn't fit properly into the plane. Assembly slowed to a near-standstill, as workers tried to pull the bundles apart and re-thread them through the fuselage. Now Airbus will have to go back to the drawing board and redesign the wiring system.
It's shaping up to be one of the costliest blunders in the history of commercial aerospace. Airbus' parent, European Aeronautic Defence & Space, expects to take a $6.1 billion profit hit over the next four years. Airlines that have ordered the A380 are fuming, and though none so far has canceled an order, Airbus will have to pay millions in late-delivery penalties.
INTEGRATION DISINTEGRATION. How could the global No. 1 aircraft maker have messed up so badly?
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Here's another scathing Airbust article.
"How could the global No. 1 aircraft maker have messed up so badly?"
The infamous "Babel-ware" strikes again.
Huh? What? When did Airbus become #1?
Dassault? That dog don't hunt. That is what Boeing uses!
I think it depends on which set of metrics are used (orders or deliveries). Or there might be other metrics.
If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.
Bwwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
* gasp *
Bwwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Man, I can't even tell myself that with a strait face...
Yeah it does. Airbus's conglomeration of different countries using different versions of the same software is root of their problem. Apparently for two installations of CATIA (Dassault) to successfully share designs, the application software and the related configuration tables have to match down to the bit level. I work in the industry and we are constantly fighting this battle. And it looks like Airbus is losing theirs.
The Euroweenies screwed the US over ISO9000 and all those insane quality "assessments"......seems like they hoisted on their own petard......snicker.
The software's fine. It's the fact that Airbus doesn't understand IT product lifecycle, version control and compatibility that's killing them on this.
My guess is that their IT people are always on vacation.
Why don't they just use CADkey/KeyCreator?...
The 747 was designed by guys with ink-stained pockets using slide rules, and it is still the best. Modern design tools are wonderfully powerful things, but the engineer has to understand what he is doing, or it is GI/GO.
blame it on the software, not on yugobus' socialist business model.
OK ... I can see the software being responsible for creating a mismatch on the design specs.
But really ... NOBODY thought to try one or two for size, before assembling a whole crapload of mismatched bundles? Yet another example of trusting the software over the hardware.
Above all, this is a tremendous failure on the part of their Systems Engineering folks. And SE failures always seem to boil down to this one, simple thing: they forgot to answer, and probably failed even to ask, the most basic question of all: "What's the worst that can happen?"
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