Management of a large avionics project

It is extremely important that the management and direction of a large avionics project should be effective in ensuring that the cost and timescale performance is under control. The paper discusses the management of a major avionics project, using as an example the AEW Nimrod MSA project entrusted to Marconi Avionics by the UK Ministry of Defence. It outlines the formulation of a multilayer project family tree structure, which is the result of a predefinition of the hardware and software that has to be produced, and which identifies and relates the elemental tasks that go to make up the development of the whole equipment that has to be designed and built.