Customer Success Story
BAE Systems – UK Eurofighter

BAE Systems flies high with Deltek Open Plan™ and Deltek Cobra™.

Deltek enhanced its ability to provide critical earned value management (EVM) offerings to its broad project-focused customer base with the acquisition of Welcom in March 2006.

Overview

BAE Systems needed a suite of products that would help them with earned value management, scheduling, and reporting for the development and manufacture of the Eurofighter Typhoon. Cobra and Open Plan were chosen to provide BAE Systems with a consistent approach across all phases of the project including design, development, manufacture, and support. These products brought about a much more efficient and effective way of working for BAE Systems.

The Need

In November 1988, the then British Aerospace Military Aircraft Division, as part of a four nation consortium, was awarded a multi-billion dollar contract to design and develop the Eurofighter Typhoon. In 2002, the highly advanced, Mach 2-capable, multi-purpose combat aircraft became a reality as the first of 620 planned aircraft rolled off the production lines. Designed to meet the requirements of four European partner nations – the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain – the Eurofighter Typhoon has been used in both beyond-visual range and close range combat scenarios including air-to-surface attack.

Central to the successful development and manufacture of the Eurofighter Typhoon has been the use of Open Plan and Cobra project management tools, which are used to coordinate the project’s schedules, budgets, and resources. In its drive for operational efficiency, BAE Systems defined a need for a world-class project planning capability that was based on Earned Value Management (EVM) principles and supported by software tools. Open Plan and Cobra give BAE Systems earned value management and project-wide project scheduling and reporting.

The Results

David Chard, Project Planning Release Manager with BAE Systems, says, “Welcom’s Open Plan and Cobra provide us with a consistent approach across all phases of the project, including design, development, manufacture, and support.”

Chard says, “The use of Cobra’s embedded earned value management techniques means that project management best practice is used throughout the project. The integrated cost and schedule management system allows us to monitor and manage the costs and the progress of the project.”

“However,” Chard continues, “as with any project, problems still occur, but with Open Plan and Cobra, they are identified early on, enabling us to assess the impact and begin planning corrective actions.”

“The project management software and associated embedded business processes - particularly EVM - have brought about more informed and accurate decision making amongst the project managers,” says Chard.

“Open Plan and Cobra help us to more accurately predict the final costs and delivery dates of the project. Before, there was always a certain amount of skepticism regarding the data collected; you could never be sure how accurate it was and this made planning difficult.”

“Cobra, combined with Open Plan, gives us greater confidence in the data and we can rely on it to be more indicative of what will happen in the future. Controlling the elements of risk is critical to BAE, especially if we are to keep our stakeholders fully informed at every stage,” says Chard.

“Using Open Plan and Cobra helped to promote a cultural change on the Eurofighter Typhoon project,” continues Chard.

“Open Plan and Cobra provide us with a consistent approach across all phases of the project, including design, development, manufacture, and support,” says Chard.

“The project management software and associated embedded business processes - particularly EVM - have brought about more informed and accurate decision making amongst the project managers. They now have timely access to the facts and are able to use these to predict future performance!”

Chard says, “In my experience as a project manager, EVM has always been viewed as a mystical art, when in fact it is just plain project management good sense. Over 170 staff have now received detailed process and tool set training, with a further 700 receiving awareness training.”

BAE Systems uses the Baan Enterprise Resource Planning System for purchasing, finance, and manufacturing, and its integration with Open Plan and Cobra was key.

Activities such as designing, tooling, and manufacturing are planned in Open Plan and then passed to Cobra where the budget and baseline are defined. Finally, this information is sent to Baan to authorize work and capture actual costs. In effect, the project management solution drives Baan. Automated costs and progress data from Baan is sent back to Cobra in order to calculate the earned value element needed to perform forecasting, as well as cost and schedule variance analysis. Open Plan and Cobra are crucial to what happens on the shop floor.

The Problem	The Solution	The Deltek Advantage
BAE Systems needed a suite of products that would help them with earned value management, scheduling, and reporting for the development and manufacture of the Eurofighter Typhoon.	Cobra and Open Plan were chosen to provide BAE Systems with a consistent approach across all phases of the project including design, development, manufacture, and support.	Cobra and Open Plan have helped BAE Systems integrate their cost and schedule management systems. Open Plan and Cobra improve final cost predictions and delivery date accuracy for their projects. There is an improvement in cost and business awareness.

Based on the successful implementation of a number of change projects, including Open Plan and Cobra on the Eurofighter Typhoon project, BAE Systems has developed a change management framework that provides a phased and structured approach to the management of change. This covers not only the IT elements but also the more difficult “softer” issues such as sponsorship, communications, and leadership.

Future deployments of Deltek products will use this framework to ensure effective management through the lifecycle of the deployment.

“In summary, Welcom’s project management tools have provided the BAE Systems management of the Eurofighter Typhoon project with more than just a reporting mechanism,” says Chard.

“It has brought about a much more efficient and effective way of working. The data quality continues to improve, and EVM is firmly embedded into the Eurofighter Typhoon thinking. There has been an improvement in cost and business awareness, and everyone is now talking the same common project language.”

The Future

The future for BAE Systems in the UK may be Deltek’s Webbased project collaboration tool, WelcomHome. BAE Systems Australia, long-time users of Open Plan and Cobra, has already chosen the next generation of Welcom’s project management tools for their project collaboration needs.

“This is the next step for us to consider,” concludes Chard.

“In my experience as a project manager, EVM (earned value management) has always been viewed as a mystical art, when in fact it is just plain project management good sense. Over 170 staff have now received detailed process and tool set training, with a further 700 receiving awareness training,” says Chard.