Case Study

McRoy Aerospace was a highly profitable company building cargo planes and refueling

tankers for the armed forces. It had been doing this for more than fifty years and was

highly successful. But because of a downturn in the government’s spending on these

types of planes, McRoy decided to enter the commercial aviation aircraft business,

specifically, wide-body planes that would seat up to 400 passengers, and compete head

on with Boeing and Airbus Industries.

During the design phase, McRoy found that the majority of the commercial airlines

would consider purchasing its plane provided that the costs were lower than the other

aircraft manufacturers. While the actual purchase price of the plane was a consideration

for the buyers, the greater interest was in the life-cycle cost of maintaining the

operational readiness of the aircraft, specifically the maintenance costs.

Operations and support costs were a considerable expense and maintenance

requirements were regulated by the government for safety reasons. The airlines make

money when the planes are in the air rather than sitting in a maintenance hangar. Each

maintenance depot maintained an inventory of spare parts so that, if a part did not

function properly, the part could be removed and replaced with a new part. The

damaged part would be sent to the manufacturer for repairs or replacement. Inventory

costs could be significant but were considered a necessary expense to keep the planes

flying.

One of the issues facing McRoy was the mechanisms for the eight doors on the aircraft.

Each pair of doors had their own mechanisms which appeared to be restricted by their

location in the plane. If McRoy could come up with a single design mechanism for all

four pairs of doors, it would significantly lower the inventory costs for the airlines as well

as the necessity to train mechanics on one set of mechanisms rather than four. On the

cargo planes and refueling tankers, each pair of doors had a unique mechanism. For

commercial aircrafts, finding one design for all doors would be challenging.

Mark Wilson, One of the department managers at McRoy’s design center, assigned

Jack, the best person he could think of to work on this extremely challenging project. If

anyone could accomplish it, it was Jack. If Jack could not do it, Mark sincerely believed

it could not be done.

The successful completion of this project would be seen as a value-added opportunity for

McRoy’s customers and could make a tremendous difference from a cost and efficiency

standpoint. McRoy would be seen as an industry leader in life-cycle costing, and this

could make the difference in getting buyers to purchase commercial planes from McRoy

Aerospace.

The project was to design an opening/closing mechanism that was the same for all of the

doors. Until now, each door could have a different set of open/close mechanisms, which

made the design, manufacturing, maintenance, and installation processes more complex,

cumbersome, and costly.

Without a doubt, Jack was the best—and probably the only—person to make this happen

even though the equipment engineers and designers all agreed that it could not be done.

Mark put all of his cards on the table when he presented the challenge to Jack. He told

him wholeheartedly that his only hope was for Jack to take on this project and explore it

from every possible, out-of-the-box angle he could think of. But Jack said right off the

bat that this may not be possible. Mark was not happy hearing Jack say this right away,

but he knew Jack would do his best.

Jack spent two months looking at the problem and simply could not come up with the

solution needed. Jack decided to inform Mark that a solution was not possible. Both Jack

and Mark were disappointed that a solution could not be found.

“I know you’re the best, Jack,” stated Mark. “I can’t imagine anyone else even coming

close to solving this critical problem. I know you put forth your best effort and the

problem was just too much of a challenge. Thanks for trying. But if I had to choose one

of your co-workers to take another look at this project, who might have even half a

chance of making it happen? Who would you suggest? I just want to make sure that we

have left no stone unturned,” he said rather glumly.

Mark’s words caught Jack by surprise. Jack thought for a moment and you could

practically see the wheels turning in his mind. Was Jack thinking about who could take

this project on and waste more time trying to find a solution? No, Jack’s wheels were

turning on the subject of the challenging problem itself. A glimmer of an idea whisked

through his brain and he said, “Can you give me a few days to think about some things,

Mark?” he asked pensively.

Mark had to keep the little glimmer of a smile from erupting full force on his face. “Sure,

Jack,” he said. “Like I said before, if anyone can do it, it’s you. Take all the time you

need.”

A few weeks later, the problem was solved and Jack’s reputation rose to even higher

heights than before.

QUESTIONS

1. What should Mark have done if Jack still was not able to resolve the problem?

2. Would it make sense for Mark to assign this problem to someone else now, after

Jack could not solve the problem the second time around?