Airbus UK gets new, collaborative ways to help meet project demands, lower costs

Airbus UK

New, collaborative ways of working help meet project demands, lower costs

Why become on demand?
Airbus leads the world in developing new technologies and pushing the boundaries of knowledge in the aerospace industry. Nowhere is this more evident than in its design and development of the A380, the world’s largest passenger jet. Airbus is a highly complex business, employing advanced technologies and processes, some of which have been specifically developed for this project. In such a large-scale, innovative design and manufacturing operation, much attention is paid to keeping costs under control.

Despite the challenges, the development timeline set for the A380 was very aggressive. One of the most complex parts of the aircraft is the wing assembly, an element for which Airbus UK had the design and manufacturing responsibility. The company realized early in the program that new processes would be needed to achieve the timescales that were being called for. It also realized that it needed to radically transform its work approach when building the A380, and saw value in bringing in an objective external consultancy to help define and implement new ways of working – both internally and externally, with suppliers.

How and where did they start?
Airbus UK commissioned IBM Global Business Services to advise and help transform Airbus UK, not only to meet the development goals of the A380 program, but to orient it for future production. IBM was chosen for its enormous breadth and depth of knowledge with expertise in business, financial and organizational disciplines as well as the aircraft industry and computer technology.

Initiatives from IBM Global Business Services helped Airbus UK drive cost out of design and manufacture, improve collaborative working, and transformed the way it works with its many subcontractors and suppliers. In one area of business transformation, IBM Business Consulting Services deployed an experienced team of human resource and organizational specialists to help Airbus UK transform the A380 program from development and design to being able to undertake large scale serial production. A key factor in the success of the A380 program was educating several hundred people across Airbus UK, along with its many subcontractors, in the new tools and processes required for collaborative working.

Some initiatives originated directly from the IBM team. Airbus built complete 3D models of A380 components to analyze "clash" conditions in airframe systems and structure before committing to cut metal - for example to ensure that there were adequate clearances for slat and flap mechanisms on the wing and the landing gear. Such large-scale 3D modeling involves an enormous volume of number-crunching, which would normally trigger the purchase of large processors. Seeing this situation, IBM consultants introduced Airbus to the concept of GRID computing, which pools unutilized processing capacity in hundreds of distributed workstations for use with processor intensive applications.

What benefits did they achieve?
The collaborative effort and expertise from IBM enabled Airbus UK to complete the A380 airliner project on time and helped reduce program costs.

Key elements of success included:

• Improved collaboration with suppliers and subcontractors eliminated data re-entry, saving €18million
• The IBM team helped Airbus UK improve concurrent engineering, reducing lead time on the wing by 36 percent, or 41 weeks
• The grid solution dramatically increased the productivity of Airbus U.K.'s existing server pool and enabled Airbus to avoid making any additional hardware purchases