An Aerospace Product Manager's Fable on Why Configuration Management is Quality Management Your company spent two million dollars reaching six-sigma goals by implementing the best quality management system it can afford and earning its SAE AS9100 Registration. Your CEO is so proud of this accomplishment that the company has adopted…

Your new aircraft control system has gone through all the reviews and audits (e.g. SRR, PDR, CDR, FCA and PCA as referenced in Part 1 of this CMsights article) and you are ready to deliver your first unit/lot number to your customer. You have diligently assigned Hard Ware Configuration Items…

In this series of CMsights posts from CMstat on configuration management best practices we will describe what are hardware configuration items (“CI” or “HWCI”) and where they are used. Next, we will examine how are CIs best employed by A&D contractors in configuration management software used at the program, project…

Part 3 of 3 - In the first article in this series we summarized the aerospace business and technology trends which have added so much complexity into their mix of products, processes, and programs that risks paralyzing even the best defense contractors and their supply chain. In the last CMsights…

Part 2 of 3 - The importance of As-Configured Management functionality for downstream users In this latest CMsights article from CMstat on hardware configuration management software we examine one of the most important aerospace configuration management functions that downstream users of product configuration data seek in their CM tools and…

(Part 1 of 3) In this first article of a multi-part series on hardware configuration management software tools for the aerospace and defense industry we begin by summarizing the trends which have added so much complexity that can paralyze even the best defense contractors and their…

(Part 2 of 3) In our last CMsights post we began to unpack a question we hear frequently: why can’t we just use existing PDM software for all of our hardware configuration management software requirements, including those uses downstream of product engineering in the supply or aftermarket service chains? Managing the…

In CMstat’s recent whitepaper on “Nimble Configuration Management for the Contract Supply & Service Chain” we shared the top CM requirements for hardware configuration management heard most often over our twenty-plus years of supporting customers in the A&D industry. They are: Intuitive and easily mastered in everyday use by the...