It put a man on the moon. The aerospace industry is exceptional in many respects. It is a technological crown jewel that synthesizes much of the most advanced scientific and engineering knowledge of modern civilizations. It produces products that, even to technologically jaded citizens of the twenty-first century, are breathtaking in their appearance and capabilities.
The Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), the European equivalent of AIA, publishes some similar data:
The structure of this volume
In many respects, the aerospace industry is managed in the same ways as other manufacturing industries. In other ways, aerospace management methods have evolved in ways that are distinctly different. The objective of this book is to identify the distinct management methods of the industry, to understand how they came to evolve, and to study how they are applied.
To accomplish this, we will proceed by sequentially focusing on the traditional disciplines familiar to any student of management.
In Chapter 2 we will examine the general structure of the aerospace industry, starting by studying its historical evolution. We will survey the many specialized products and industry sectors that make up its horizontal segmentation, and will pay special attention to the military–civil dichotomy that divides the industry into halves of roughly equivalent size. We will see how the industry is distributed geographically within Europe, the USA, and elsewhere, and will discuss the industry’s vertical stratification and its value chain, beginning with raw material suppliers and proceeding to the giant integrated aircraft manufacturers at the top of the pyramid.
Chapter 3 deals with the aerospace workforce and labor relations. It analyzes the geographical distribution of the workforce in North America, Europe, and Asia, and looks at government initiatives to foster its growth. It follows the history of organized labor in the industry, and considers political controversies caused by redistribution of aerospace jobs as a result of international collaborative ventures.
Chapter 4, on aerospace law, international accords, and contracting procedures, is a summary of the context and application of laws and international agreements applying to the aerospace industry, including government airworthiness regulations and agencies, civil liabilities and tort law governing civil and military aircraft, export control licensing, and international limitations on government subsidies. A section on aerospace contracting methods is also included.
Chapter 5 addresses government financial support of aerospace. It reviews the history of government nationalization and subsequent privatization of aerospace industries, international agreements intended to curtail market distortions caused by government loans and subsidies, and an overview of the long-term Euro–American dispute involving perceived unfair subsidies to Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, and Embraer.
Chapter 6 covers the unique history of international cooperation in aerospace, including joint ventures, teaming, and industrial offsets. It analyzes the motivation for international cooperation and the structural arrangements that aerospace firms use to work together internationally, and includes a study of economic benefits and political controversy surrounding industrial offsets.
Chapter 7 explores aerospace accounting and financial management, and contains explanation and analysis of unconventional financial methods and accounting treatments used in the industry. These practices are often a result of inordinately large capital investments and extended time intervals between program launch and breakeven. The chapter studies financing strategies used in the industry, including arrangements with risk-sharing partners. Financial practices in both the civil and military sectors are discussed and accounting concepts used by Airbus and Boeing are compared and contrasted.
Chapter 8 is a treatment of aerospace systems engineering and technology management. It is a detailed review of how the aerospace industry developed the concept of systems engineering, what the concept accomplishes, and how the discipline has been defined and applied to control technology during the phases of design, production, and post-delivery. Procedures used for change management and configuration control are described in detail.
Chapter 9 describes practices the industry has developed for management of aerospace programs. Beginning with a definition of an aerospace program, the chapter recounts the early history of the need for a management system to control the growing design and production complexity in the industry. Basic tenets of the program management concept are explored, and standard aerospace program management practices are explained. Illustrative examples are provided, including management structures of major joint international programs.
Chapter 10 addresses aerospace production management, and traces the evolution of aerospace production methods, including innovative technologies originally developed specifically for aerospace applications. Recent aggressive initiatives to improve efficiencies by introducing lean manufacturing methods are described. Concepts for scheduling and control are discussed, including the use of work breakdown structures. The flow of planning, control, and implementation in the factory are traced in detail.
Chapter 11, on the subject of management of aerospace quality assurance, includes a discussion of the concept of cost of quality in the aerospace industry, and follows the historical development of international aerospace quality standards. A detailed explanation is provided of AS/EN 9100, the principal quality standard that currently defines industry requirements. Procedures for managing the disposition of non-conforming material are defined.
Chapter 12 studies aerospace supply chain management, and looks at the aerospace supplier network that accounts for the majority of the value of new aircraft. Alternative methods for organizing the supply chain are analyzed and compared. Historical experiences by Boeing and Airbus are descr...
