A380: Repeating the 747's history?

I just read an article indicating that the various countries involved used
non-compatible software, each thinking that theirs was the best, and they
were wrong.

According to an article in today's (Thursday) WSJ, Airbus will be
restructuring to eliminate waste. The article indicated that the dual
political structure will be eliminated. Last week Airbus announced that
it will be outsourcing alot of subassemblies and the currency of record
will be US dollars. Looks like a big shakeup is headed for the EU.

On 4 Oct 2006 13:29:06 -0700, "Kingfish" wrote:


john smith wrote:
Physical mockups were actually constructed at that time of various
components. If it didn't fit, you saw why.

Correct, but the CATIA program used in the A380 development allowed the
designers to virtually mock up the components and check for
interference etc. The same program was used during the 777 program
development, apparently with better results(?)

Ummmm....Airbus used CATIA for the 380, but had one big, big, problem: They
didn't require everyone to use the same VERSION. And the versions weren't
compatible.

http://aecnews.com/articles/2035.aspx

"It only makes sense if appeasement is a core corporate value"

Ron Wanttaja

Bob Noel wrote in
:

In article ,
"Bob Gardner" wrote:

I just read an article indicating that the various countries involved
used non-compatible software, each thinking that theirs was the best,
and they were wrong.

why, that's hard to believe :-)


If this were the first airplane Airbus designed, the use of non-
compatible software causing delays would be much more believable. How many
airplanes does a company have to design before they learn the necessity to
ensure compatible design design software between all their divisions and
subcontractors?

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 02:00:59 GMT, Marty Shapiro
wrote:

If this were the first airplane Airbus designed, the use of non-
compatible software causing delays would be much more believable. How many
airplanes does a company have to design before they learn the necessity to
ensure compatible design design software between all their divisions and
subcontractors?

This assumes engineering decisions are made based on engineering issues.
Increasingly, decisions are made for political reasons. If insisting the
engineers of Country B switch to a more up-to-date tool means that the Prime
Minister of Country B (a major stockholder) will call your boss and threaten
retribution, which way do you think the decision will fall?

I worked a program once (non-aviation) where an engineer did a very careful
trade study on suppliers, then was forced to select the one with the highest
cost and lowest quality. The company was trying to gain some critical licenses
in the country where the supplier was based.

Ron Wanttaja

Mike Schumann wrote:
CAD programs like CATIA work great at making everything fit mechanically.
It sounds like a lot of the 380 delays are related to wiring issues due to
the large number of customizations for the individual airline customers. I
suspect that CATIA doesn't help solve that problem very much.


Hi Mike,

I worked on the 777, and CATIA does help with wiring in terms of
checking the routing of the wiring bundles, potential interferences,
and making sure that they reach to where they need to go.

The rest of it is schematics and good old fashioned engineering
planning and execution. It sounds to me like Airbus may have been a
little too disorganized in this department on the A380.

Many people may not realize it, but when Boeing came out with the
747-400 it was treated by Boeing as a fairly minor upgrade, but was in
fact closer to designing a whole new airplane. The result was not
enough up front engineering and a program fraught with problems.
Boeing took the lessons learned from the 747-400 and applied them to
the 777 with the intent to do it right from the start. As a result,
the 777 was the smoothest, most problem free airplane Boeing ever
designed (not without problems, but manageable).

Unfortunately Boeing has stepped back from the level of effort put
forth on the 777 for the 787 a bit due to the high development cost of
the 777. The 787 is having more problems than the 777 did, but not as
much as the A380. It remains to be seen how smoothly the 787
development turns out... I am hoping it comes together well because it
is a really cool airplane. The 787 is going to set a whole new
standard for commercial jets.

Dean Wilkinson

Marco Leon schrieb:

Bad PMOs have a habit of creating a slippery slope of cutting corners
coupled with a reluctance to bring up issues for fear of your boss
getting fired.

Ingeneer: We need two years.
Sales: We want you to do it in one.
Ingeneer: That's impossible.
Sales: We've just announced our schedule of one year.
Ingeneer: But I said that's impossible.
Sales: Our schedule is published, do it in one year.
Ingeneer: Aaaargh!

One year leater, a press release: Our ingeneer department has failed to
stay within the schedule. The chief ingeneer has been fired and the
department will be reorganized.

john smith wrote:

According to an article in today's (Thursday) WSJ, Airbus will be
restructuring to eliminate waste. The article indicated that the dual
political structure will be eliminated.

Wow, Stefan hit it on the head!! Do ya think he might work for a
certain airframe mfr based in Toulouse??

Kingfish,

a lot of problems allegedly seem to come through actions of the top
sales person, promising customers more "customizations" than can now be
handled in an effective production process.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

"Thomas Borchert" wrote:

a lot of problems allegedly seem to come through actions of the top
sales person, promising customers more "customizations" than can now be
handled in an effective production process.

Ah-hah!

Now *that* has the ring of truth to it. Anyone who has ever been
responsible for the delivery of complex technical projects can relate to it.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Thomas Borchert wrote:
Kingfish,

a lot of problems allegedly seem to come through actions of the top
sales person, promising customers more "customizations" than can now be
handled in an effective production process.

Sounds familiar. I've read the wiring issues have to do with the
in-flight entertainment system. Another tidbit I've heard is that
different software versions were being used by the subcontractors that
were working on the program.