Manufacturing · ExpansionCompleted 2022

Aerospace Components Facility

The airframer set the date. Every machine foundation had to be ready before its machine.

LocationWichita, KS

ClientConfidential

LocationWichita, KS

SectorManufacturing

Value$160M

Size340,000 sq ft

DeliveryDesign-Build

Duration22 months

StatusCompleted 2022

Why it mattered

New manufacturing capacity has customers waiting on it before the slab is poured. The first production run is the date that matters, and everything else is a means to it.

The challenge

An aerospace supplier expanded a facility to produce structural components for a new aircraft program, on a timetable set by the airframer.

Heavy machine foundations, overhead cranes and quality certifications all sat on the critical path. A late foundation would hold a machine, and a late machine would hold first-article inspection.

Our role

CPM Scheduling Critical Path Analysis Schedule Updates

Schedule at a glance

The whole program, on one line.

Start to finish, as the schedule tells it. For work still in progress, the bar moves with today's data date.

StartSep 2020

Duration22 months

HandoverJul 2022

Progress—

Overlap with controlTrack outside dependenciesMeasure, do not estimatePlan the first run

How we held the date

Our approach, phase by phase.

The same disciplined sequence we bring to every engagement, shaped around what this project needed most.

PHASE 01PHASE 02PHASE 03PHASE 04

PHASE 01Overlap with control

Phased building turnover planned so tool installation could start well before the building was complete.

PHASE 02Track outside dependencies

Utility service, permits and equipment deliveries held as critical external milestones.

PHASE 03Measure, do not estimate

Earned value and quantity-based progress in place of opinion-based percent complete.

PHASE 04Plan the first run

Commissioning and production ramp-up scheduled with operations from the first baseline.

What changed

The difference we made

Measured the only way that matters: whether the date and the budget held.

Result 01First article on the airframer's date

First-article inspection was completed on the date the aircraft program required.

Result 02Foundations first

Machine foundations were sequenced ahead of enclosure, so equipment could set on arrival.

Result 03Certification scheduled

Quality certification steps carried durations and owners inside the schedule.

Services engaged

What we brought to it

Our work in Manufacturing

2.01.01CPM Scheduling

Critical Path Method schedules engineered so that every date has a reason, every float value means something and every forecast can be trusted in a boardroom.

2.01.07Critical Path Analysis

Rigorous analysis of critical and near-critical paths that shows leadership exactly where attention and money will move the date, and where they will not.

2.01.06Schedule Updates

Disciplined periodic updates that capture verified progress, explain every movement and keep the schedule an instrument of command rather than a record of hope.

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