Tools for Change

by Fred Sandsmark

Change management was key to Boeing’s Global Services & Support (GS&S) division’s successful supply chain transformation, known as Integrated Material and Information Management (IMIM). Capgemini’s Accelerated Solutions Environment (ASE) process and Rapid Design and Visualization (RDV) offering supported the change.

Boeing’s GS&S Director of Supply Support Tim Murnin had experienced ASE in a previous job and was eager to try it at Boeing. ASE facilitates collaboration among all the stakeholders in a process. “It’s not three days of PowerPoints,” Murnin says. “It’s intellectually stimulating debate.” Attendance is mandatory, and the ASE process encourages active participation.

Aaron Kelley, IT manager at Boeing’s GS&S, admired the efficiency of the Capgemini ASE process. “It would have taken us many months to get the level of buy-in from the organization that we got in just a few days with ASE,” he says. Kelley and the Capgemini team mocked up user interfaces for much of the IMIM process for use in ASE sessions. “It got the users who were there past seeing IMIM as a theory,” he says. “They could see what would be there and how it would impact them, which allowed them to really engage and contribute better.”

“It gives us something more tactile that we can see,” agrees Dale Robinson, business project manager for IMIM at Boeing’s GS&S. “It let our requirements be translated quickly into a tool we can test and react to.”

Fred Sandsmark is a regular contributor to Profit.