Editorial

Citation

Bennett, D. (2007), "Editorial", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 18 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmtm.2007.06818baa.001

Editorial

The Airbus A380 550 seat “super jumbo” passenger aircraft is undisputedly a wonderful piece of engineering and an elegant machine when in the air. During some visits to France over the last year I have had the privilege of witnessing a couple of test flights at Blagnac Airport, Toulouse, near the Airbus final assembly plant. I can certainly say that its size, coupled with the fact that it is one of the quietest aircraft using this busy airport, is extremely impressive.

Yet the A380 and Airbus are in trouble. Problems with A380 production have meant that the first deliveries are unlikely to be until late 2007, almost two years after the original plan. Consequently, the shares of Airbus have slumped and there has been a succession of new executives struggling to turn the company round. Now thousands of jobs are being lost as the company tries to restore its financial viability.

The “headline” problem with the A380 seems to relate to its electrical wiring. Each one has 500 kilometres, threaded through the plane in thick bundles. However, it is reported that engineers at Airbus plants in France and Germany have been using different systems and did not update each other on changes they made as they went along. But now another production problem has emerged. The plane looks set to be more than 5 tonnes overweight; the equivalent of around 50 passengers and their luggage.

The Airbus case is a perfect illustration of how very different can be the capabilities in engineering design and manufacturing management for a company and its products. Maybe this not surprising to those who work in this field and understand the distinction between these two activities, but it is surprising to me how ignorant others are, even among my academic colleagues in other business functions.

So, given the obvious need for improvements in how one of Europe's flagship products is being manufactured it is interesting to see how much emphasis has been placed on the subject of manufacturing management in the latest European funding programme for Research and Development, the 7th Framework, or FP7, launched at the end 2006 and running until 2013. According to the European Commission there are nine priority areas under this program http://ec.europa.eu/research/future i.e.

1. 1.

   Health

2. 2.

   Food, agriculture and biotechnology

3. 3.

   Information and communication technologies

4. 4.

   Nanosciences and nanotechnologies

5. 5.

   Energy

6. 6.

   Environment

7. 7.

   Transport

8. 8.

   Socio-economic sciences and the humanities

9. 9.

   Security and space

Where is research into manufacturing management in the FP7 programme? Maybe I should be kind and assume it is buried within the other specified areas. If it is not, and the EC's 50 billion euro of funding for FP7 is simply directed towards R&D and engineering design, I wonder how many more wonderful new products European companies will launch that cannot then be made!

David Bennett