Airbus - Creating value from
IT project management
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Minuten Lesezeit
Transforming IT project management with a focus on continuous
improvement based on performance measurement and benchmarking
Airbus sought a new partnership to support
the transformation of its application portfolio
project management for Corporate Services and
Aircraft Program Management solutions.
The Challenge
Airbus is one of the world’s leading aircraft
manufacturers, designing, building, marketing and
maintaining the most advanced passenger aircraft.
Its Airbus IM division manages a broad portfolio of
more than 300 applications supporting Finance,
Corporate and Aircraft Programme Management,
Enterprise Content Management, Business
Intelligence and Value Chain Visibility.
Expansion in the airline industry and a need to keep pace
with IT trends saw Airbus seeking a fast transformation
of its information systems. This would support a
growing production rate and reduce time-to- market.
Applications harmonisation and optimisation,
as well as the alignment of project management
practices to deliver faster, cheaper and better,
were crucial to this transformation.
Key Points
- Project management IT
governance framework delivering
continuous transformation
- Fixed-price catalogue for
project management
- Industrialised processes and tools
ensure best practice consistency
Our solution
Airbus IM sought a partner to supply a bundled
project management service built around
a catalogue of services. Already working
with a number of other Airbus divisions,
IT-enabled service provider Sopra Steria proposed
an innovative partnership-based solution. Sopra Steria would share the risk of IT project
delivery and made an investment in the
continuous transformation of the ITgovernance model. This aimed to improve
the global performance of all stakeholders.
The solution comprised:
- Project management from
initiation to completion,
including management of
development contractors
- Responsibility for defining
business needs and
system architectures
- Responsibility for validation,
testing, acceptance support,
as well as solution rollout
How we worked together
Airbus IM must adapt quickly as
the demands of the business
dictate. Teams have to scale up or
down in line with the changing IT
project landscape. Steria provides
this flexibility with strict service
level agreements relating to the
speed at which new projects
are set up and resourced.
Sopra Steria works closely with the
Airbus project portfolio managers.
They share information on and
qualify the project opportunities
identified by Airbus within the
entire application portfolio.
All Airbus IT activity relating to
these applications is carried out
from two locations: in France
and in Germany. In France, Sopra Steria
works from the secured zone of
a near-site facility sharing the
Airbus IT environment. Although Sopra Steria operates as a standalone
entity with clearly defined roles
and responsibilities, there is
a single team ethos between
the two organisations.
Sopra Steria has deployed its IT
governance project management
framework with a transformation
plan included. This ensures
the continuous improvement of all project-related activities.
It draws on Sopra Steria’s expertise
network through centres of
competence, shared services
centres and partners.
Sopra Steria has also put in place the tools to measure ongoing
performance, with a monthly
consolidated view of key
performance indicators
and their evolution.
Results and benefits
In outsourcing its project
management tasks to Sopra Steria,
Airbus IM is free to focus
on portfolio management
in conjunction with its
customers within Airbus. A
number of business benefits
are accruing, including:
- Reduced time-to-market
with the ability to ramp up
and down project resources
to match demand
- Improved IT project quality and
best practice consistency in
an industrialised framework
of processes and tools. These
are based on IT best practices,
such as CobIT, CMMi, eSCM,
Lean PPM, NSP, Six Sigma, etc
- Reduced global costs
at portfolio level due to
shared, repeatable and
optimised processes
- Price transparency with a
100% fixed price catalogue
for project management,
architecture consulting,
testing and deployment
- Shared risks and objectives
between both companies
help to boost performance
- Continuous performance
monitoring through
comprehensive dashboards
and scorecards support the
transformation strategy
New opportunities for identifying
areas of performance and
cost improvement continue
to be sought. For example,
Airbus is implementing Sopra Steria’s
diagnostic consulting tool
Portfolio Assessment Method to
identify the potential for value
improvement and reduced TCO.
" We have found in Sopra Steria the right partner to
drive our transformation,
supporting our project
management stakes well
while ensuring best in class
project delivery."
MICHEL BEILLARD,
Airbus IM head of Corporate
Solutions and Bundle Manager