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Inside Boeing’s Secret Formula to Win T-X ...
Steve Trimble - Aerospace Daily & Defense Report (AW&ST) - May 15, 2019
Ever since Boeing’s winning bid for the T-X trainer contract came in last September at least $10 billion less than the U.S. Air Force’s original estimate, blowing away two established competitors with a clean-sheet aircraft design, the question has persisted: Did the Boeing and Saab team “buy in” to the program by submitting a money-losing price to secure a franchise defense contract?
The answer carries strategic implications for the company.
If yes, then Boeing can expect to lose money up front as it delivers at least 351 T-X trainers through the next decade and hope to recoup the losses over the long-term with revenue from sustainment, modernization and potential derivatives.
If no, then Boeing has created a disruptively affordable template for new product development that can be applied widely across the company, just as new opportunities arise to develop a new mid-market airplane for the civil market, and a new class of high-speed rotorcraft and fixed-wing combat aircraft in the military sector.
Not surprisingly, Boeing insists the answer is the latter, and, for the first time, provided details of the secret formula that helped the company shock the market and impress the Air Force with its winning proposal for the T-X program.
The origins of Boeing’s T-X strategy started with recognizing the scale of the challenge.
When Boeing officials partnered with Saab to design a clean-sheet aircraft for the T-X program in 2013, they knew they were competing with two proven mature aircraft designs - Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)/Lockheed Martin’s T-50 and Leonardo’s T-100, a derivative of the M346.
Both had emerged over the last two decades as the clear leaders in the market for advanced jet trainers.
“We were competing against proven, in production aircraft, so we had to do things differently if we were going to compete and have an aircraft that was viable for that campaign,” said Paul Niewald, Boeing’s T-X chief engineer, who briefed reporters during a media tour of the company’s factory complex in St. Louis on May 15.
The team decided to adopt an extreme approach to model-based engineering.
It’s a discipline of product design that calls for constructing an elaborate, three-dimensional digital model of the entire aircraft.
The model allows engineers to analyze aerodynamic flows and loads, create a manufacturing plan and distribute the design seamlessly throughout the supply chain.
Although the concept of model-based engineering is not unique to Boeing in the aerospace industry, Niewald believes that Boeing took it further than the competition.
“Yes, 3D design has been out there. But to be able to put it all together through the process, all the way through production, this gave us the opportunity to prove it out and show that it does have time-savings,” he said.
Another factor was adopting an agile approach to software development. Instead of building up large blocks of software over several months or even years, the functions are broken down into smaller increments that are integrated at the system level every two months.
“This had us basically releasing software every eight weeks,” Niewald said.
“By doing this in such a disciplined manner at a frequency it allowed us to reduce our software [lines of code] by 50% [compared to a traditional aircraft development program].”
The approach allowed Boeing to build and fly two aircraft within three years of the program launch in 2013.
When this journalist referred to the two T-X aircraft built so far as “prototypes” and implying they don’t represent the production standard, a Boeing spokesperson stepped in to point out that they are not considered prototypes internally.
Instead, the aircraft are close to the baseline design of the aircraft ordered during the engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD) phase to support ground and flight testing, said Ted Torgerson, Boeing’s T-X program manager.
“Obviously we didn’t have the final specification when we designed the first two, but we got really close,” Torgerson said.
“There are some things that needed to be modified. But that’s what EMD is about. It’s that delta work to get the next EMD aircraft done. But I will tell you that the mold line doesn’t change in the airplane. That’s why we call it ‘EMD-ready.’”
The model-based engineering approach saved time in more ways, Niewald added.
Informed by the digitally accurate design, suppliers delivered parts fit precisely the first time, he said.
The first two aircraft were assembled without shims on minimal tooling with a re-work rate of 0.3%, he said.
Overall, the assembly process took 80% fewer hours than an estimate of how long it would take to build the aircraft under traditional processes, he added.
If yes, then Boeing can expect to lose money up front as it delivers at least 351 T-X trainers through the next decade and hope to recoup the losses over the long-term with revenue from sustainment, modernization and potential derivatives.
If no, then Boeing has created a disruptively affordable template for new product development that can be applied widely across the company, just as new opportunities arise to develop a new mid-market airplane for the civil market, and a new class of high-speed rotorcraft and fixed-wing combat aircraft in the military sector.
Not surprisingly, Boeing insists the answer is the latter, and, for the first time, provided details of the secret formula that helped the company shock the market and impress the Air Force with its winning proposal for the T-X program.
The origins of Boeing’s T-X strategy started with recognizing the scale of the challenge.
When Boeing officials partnered with Saab to design a clean-sheet aircraft for the T-X program in 2013, they knew they were competing with two proven mature aircraft designs - Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI)/Lockheed Martin’s T-50 and Leonardo’s T-100, a derivative of the M346.
Both had emerged over the last two decades as the clear leaders in the market for advanced jet trainers.
“We were competing against proven, in production aircraft, so we had to do things differently if we were going to compete and have an aircraft that was viable for that campaign,” said Paul Niewald, Boeing’s T-X chief engineer, who briefed reporters during a media tour of the company’s factory complex in St. Louis on May 15.
The team decided to adopt an extreme approach to model-based engineering.
It’s a discipline of product design that calls for constructing an elaborate, three-dimensional digital model of the entire aircraft.
The model allows engineers to analyze aerodynamic flows and loads, create a manufacturing plan and distribute the design seamlessly throughout the supply chain.
Although the concept of model-based engineering is not unique to Boeing in the aerospace industry, Niewald believes that Boeing took it further than the competition.
“Yes, 3D design has been out there. But to be able to put it all together through the process, all the way through production, this gave us the opportunity to prove it out and show that it does have time-savings,” he said.
Another factor was adopting an agile approach to software development. Instead of building up large blocks of software over several months or even years, the functions are broken down into smaller increments that are integrated at the system level every two months.
“This had us basically releasing software every eight weeks,” Niewald said.
“By doing this in such a disciplined manner at a frequency it allowed us to reduce our software [lines of code] by 50% [compared to a traditional aircraft development program].”
The approach allowed Boeing to build and fly two aircraft within three years of the program launch in 2013.
When this journalist referred to the two T-X aircraft built so far as “prototypes” and implying they don’t represent the production standard, a Boeing spokesperson stepped in to point out that they are not considered prototypes internally.
Instead, the aircraft are close to the baseline design of the aircraft ordered during the engineering, manufacturing and development (EMD) phase to support ground and flight testing, said Ted Torgerson, Boeing’s T-X program manager.
“Obviously we didn’t have the final specification when we designed the first two, but we got really close,” Torgerson said.
“There are some things that needed to be modified. But that’s what EMD is about. It’s that delta work to get the next EMD aircraft done. But I will tell you that the mold line doesn’t change in the airplane. That’s why we call it ‘EMD-ready.’”
The model-based engineering approach saved time in more ways, Niewald added.
Informed by the digitally accurate design, suppliers delivered parts fit precisely the first time, he said.
The first two aircraft were assembled without shims on minimal tooling with a re-work rate of 0.3%, he said.
Overall, the assembly process took 80% fewer hours than an estimate of how long it would take to build the aircraft under traditional processes, he added.
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