F-22 Project Raptor

F-22 Program Experience with Critical Chain Project Management

The F-22 Raptor is the United States’ air supremacy fighter for the 21st century. It is a culmination of a decade of revolutionary technical advancements blended into one air superiority fighter.

F-22 Raptor logoThe contractors for this program are Lockheed Martin in partnership with Boeing and Pratt & Whitney. More than 2000 subcontractors support the program across the USA. These companies are teamed in a national effort with the United States Air Force to achieve a single goal: To provide the highest quality resources and technologies to build the most revolutionary fighter in the world. It has become a reality.

The scrap and rework on this has been remarkably lower than any previous fighter program. The F-22 is meeting and exceeding its testing and affordability goals. The program brings air force and contractor disciplines together focusing on technologies and systems engineering that reduce the lifecycle issues of past acquisitions.

The F-22 is today the only day and night all weather stealth fighter in the world.

Boeing
The implementation of Critical Chain at the Boeing assembly facility in Seattle was a bottom-up implementation effort. It didn’t have senior level buy-in. It did have two key management resources – the factory manager and the head of the lean office (at the time).

For Critical Chain to be successful in this environment, it was necessary for it to prove value to the customers - the leads and supervisors who used the buffer report information to operate on a daily basis.

Complicating this was a perceived problem - integrating Critical Chain with the Earned Value Management System already in place. (This was done successfully, but details were not provided.)

Critical Chain was brought in through the leadership of the Lean Office head. They spent time customizing the approach, finding out how this would work in their factory environment, finding out how to mesh it with the Earned Value Metrics and working to obtain volume of the factory floor.

In 1999 the factory was a very dynamic environment. There was a high degree of variability, new processes (this was a new-technology airplane), issues with parts, engineering challenges to overcome, and breaking in (and breaking) of new tools and hardware.

Daily Earned Value Metrics were being collected to report the status of the program. Earned Value gives a very good high-level focus of how a project is coming along on cost and schedule. But the factory was struggling to find the focus necessary to determine what they could do on a daily basis to meet their cost and schedule target. Earned Value was not doing a sufficient job of providing that level of detail.

As a result, they were under very high cost and schedule pressure, over budget, and missing deliveries. This resulted in sending work to the customer – Lockheed Martin - incomplete. They had to send a team of Boeing people to Lockheed Martin to finish the work – a very costly proposition.

The challenge was to bring all of that work that was going to Lockheed Martin back to Boeing. The issue was how to bring the work back in and get it done on time when they couldn’t get it done to begin with.

The approach was to use the Lean Manufacturing Office and accelerated improvement workshops to focus on key issues identified in the factory. They did a lot of kitting of the project with the IAW – a three-phase operation. In doing this they found that the mechanics didn’t have the parts, materials and supplies on-site that they needed to do their work without interruption.

Another thing complicating the mechanics' job was that some of the work orders didn’t allow a smooth flow of their work. So they did some work order rewrites. The focus using Critical Chain was working with the mechanics to refine the precedence networks. They brought the mechanics in a room, put them on a pedestal and said “Guys, you build these aircraft. These are the jobs. You tell us how this thing goes together.”

There had been a disconnect between the factory floor and the existing scheduling system. The factory didn’t believe in the schedules. They were putting the airplane together the way they thought it should go. So Boeing capitalized on that and by working with the mechanics in developing the precedence network, Boeing obtained a de facto buy-in to the Critical Chain schedules that started showing up on the floor.

Results
Significant improvement was seen after holding both improvement workshops and implementing Critical Chain. Unfortunately, new management was brought in and chose not to use Critical Chain. This resulted in a setback. Critical Chain was then reintroduced, along with a new product configuration. Despite the new configuration, using Critical Chain they were again able to deliver on cost and well under target.

Current Status/Benefits Realized

  • Factorywide implementation – November 2000
    Multi-Single Project Environment – each built portion is run as a single project – the clock/pacesetter is the master schedule which controls all of the delivery dates.
  • Experiencing Unprecedented Performance
    Meeting schedules and beating budgets
    Customers perceive them as stable and consistent because Boeing is managing the variability inherent in these projects using Critical Chain Project Management
  • Excellent factory and program morale
  • Best team and cross shift relationships ever. There are no conflicts between shifts anymore because all are working with the same information – the buffer reports

As a result of the F-22 and other experiences Boeing has had, Critical Chain Project Management is earning credibility and respect across the company, through the divisions and across disciplines.

Lockheed Martin Aero
When Lockheed Martin got involved in Critical Chain Project Management there were a lot of drivers. Externally, pressures included a budget capped by Congress, legislated scheduled events, and concern over their schedule’s credibility and variability.

Internally, the drive for improvement came from their constraints, which compelled improved execution, and the difficulty in applying lean to development.

When they looked for ways to achieve the improvements needed, they found Critical Chain Project Management, and were impressed with the success Critical Chain had in other companies, such as Boeing, and government agencies.

The challenge they faced in implementing Critical Chain was how to incorporate new management technology to deliver the revolutionary combat capability that is embodied in the F-22.

“Does Critical Chain Project Management apply to us? Is fighter technology so unique that Critical Chain doesn’t apply? What results should we expect? Where and how can it be applied? What obstacles need to be overcome?” These were the questions they asked.

When Lockheed Martin looked for a candidate to use Critical Chain Project Management, they found that the Marietta, GA build team was most interested. The leader of production saw the value in Critical Chain Project Management and went to Boeing where more was learned. Boeing’s enthusiasm and experience hooked the Marietta team.

The next hurdle was to secure funding from the Pentagon under a cycle time reduction initiative. When the Pentagon delayed the funding, Lockheed Martin funded it as a process improvement. The training began immediately and a pilot program was started in the finishes process.

Finishes was selected because it had a strong, motivated leader. It had the longest post-assembly span, which they wanted to reduce; and the processes in the finishes factory were still developing and had a lot of variability.

What Critical Chain provided Lockheed Martin
Using Critical Chain has returned stability and credibility to the schedules in the finishes area and reduced the chaos. The team has reduced by more than 50% the number of days the aircraft spends in final finishes.

They now have the ability to automatically produce

  • Daily prioritized work for supervisors and workers
  • Projection of completion based on progress to date
  • Warning of risks in time to plan work around
  • Schedule impact of drop-in tasks.

At time of presentation, Lockheed Martin was just getting into synchronization of schedules for full aircraft and major components.

Combined Test Force (CTF)
This part of the program is unique because program contractors work side-by-side as a team with the air force, military and civilians. The CTF is using many new and innovative approaches – like Critical Chain – to improve its effectiveness.

During the initial discussion (Spring 2000) with the test team about a pilot program for Critical Chain, they decided to focus on using Critical Chain Project Management on aircraft deliveries to get more program benefit. The previously described pilot program in Marietta was initiated.

In Fall 2000, the CTF was asked to brief a senior level USAF Tiger Team looking for ways to reduce the schedule for the flight test program. They were asked to compare Critical Chain Project Management to their current method of managing projects, Critical Path. The study favored Critical Chain.

The air force funding that was originally earmarked for the Critical Chain pilot in Marietta was released and used instead for the CTF Critical Chain program at Edwards Air Force Base. With support from the Tiger Team, the CTF proceeded with the implementation of a plan developed with the help of AGI. At this point, the CTF had completed all of the technical and leadership training despite the conflicts with other tasks and priorities.

CTF is covering the following areas with Critical Chain Project Management

  • Logistics, Test and Evaluation – to make sure that the aircraft can be effectively repaired and maintained by evaluating the documentation, training, tools and support equipment designed specifically for the F-22
  • Flight Sciences – the aircraft is flown at different altitudes and speeds. This ensures that the aircraft can safely meet operational performance requirements
  • Mission Avionics
  • Maintenance Modes – which supports all of the other areas

They quickly realized that the demanding requirements for the aircraft and flight-test environment would be the acid test for Critical Chain in this program.

Based on their experience and planning, many of the CTF personnel were skeptical that the variability of the flying missions could be effectively modeled in Critical Chain networks. The myriad resources and sources of variability generated a high degree of complexity compared to most project environments. There were also many external dependencies that could lead to delays; and there were no “pure” precedent Critical Chain projects.

However, they believed that after modeling several sample schedules for the flying missions, that they could adequately model resource requirements and schedule variability.

Some of the flight sciences test engineers have realized a greater understanding of the test requirements after completing the plan for the next envelope expansion phase. They believe that they are far better postured now for execution and expansion to other phases of the envelope.

In avionics, they have completed the plan for the first guided missile launch, and this has given the CTF enough confidence to proceed into execution. They are confident that as they continue to develop the remainder of the schedule they will gain a better understanding of how to manage resources to improve scheduled performance.

CTF’s ability to execute to these schedules in the extremely dynamic flight-test environment will be the key to prove the benefits and gain more volume.

The CTF is further along with the planning and schedule development in logistics and maintenance. Buy-in there is not an issue. The logistics testers have even created an automated interface with their management system to generate project plans. They are currently waiting for opportunities for the aircraft to become available for targeted opportunities testing and will determine what work will be scheduled.

Maintenance has completed one major modification with the Critical Chain schedule and is currently using a synchronized schedule for the next four planned modifications. Their results will be captured in a cycle time reduction study for the air force, and then they will proceed to plan and schedule the next series of modifications.

For both of these areas, the key now to completing the implementation is effective use of the software for tracking buffer management.

The benefits of synchronization that CTF has realized include increased insight and reduced downtime, resulting in a yield of 24 more available flying days.

They have been encouraged by the results to date and expect to get similar overall benefits that have been shown in other areas. At the time of this presentation, it was too early to detail any other results.

Lessons learned

  • Technical
    There is a learning curve
    Critical Chain expertise and experience are vital
  • Management/Culture
    A new management approach (not just schedules) requires implementation emphasis and expertise
    Leadership support is imperative – a pilot implementation and emphasis on need is essential
    Selection of the owner and pilot area are vital – success is heavily dependent on the owner’s drive

Overall Conclusions
Does Critical Chain Project Management apply to them?
YES! The team is encouraged by the results and is convinced that Critical Chain can really add value to the program. They are looking for ways to quickly expand to other areas.

What results should be expected?
The focus has been on cycle time reduction, and in achieving that, they’ve achieved better resource utilization and expect that the cost benefits will come.

Where and how can it be applied?
It really does depend on the extent of the cultural change that has to take place. In general, they have found that what is needed is a crisis or a visionary leader or a very willing owner – some kind of catalyst that will help establish the environment that welcomes change. Without that it’s just like trench warfare – the implementation team will be kneecapped going through the minefield, instead of being heroes.

What obstacles need to be overcome?
Culture
Existing workload
Funding

Their future plans for Critical Chain Project Management

  • Application at CTF at Edwards Air Force Base can rapidly encompass all of the activities. Time will tell if it will.
  • Targeting some additional development areas. This will increase program integration and savings. (Critical Chain is already moving in to assembly.)
  • Further application to Lockheed Martin Aero manufacturing are pending:
    The results of the application to the next aircraft and all finishes work
    LM Aero’s single company strategy
  • Initiatives to gain supplier buy-in and pilot underway
Summary
Critical Chain Project Management is coming into its own on the F-22; and the solid results using Critical Chain Project Management are leading to broader application.

These results were presented by Bob Casey (F-22 Weapons System Integration and Test, Lockheed Martin Aero), David K. Christ (F-22 Manufacturing Plans, The Boeing Company), and Jim Pitstick (Industrial Engineer, F-22 Special Program Office) at TOC World® 2001. The presentation is available on video (#JLA-05).

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