The Boeing 777: Development Life Cycle Follows Artifact

Iterative life cycle models have become popular in software engineering, for example in agile development. In contrast, the waterfall model appears to prevail in manufacturing engineering disciplines. This includes aircraft engineering and Boeing’s project for developing its most recent passenger aircraft, the 777. The paper walks through the phases of the 777’s development and compares to iterative development. This suggests two observations: Response time Firstly, the over-all waterfall approach in the 777 project appears to be well-motivated by the physical, manufactured nature of aircraft components such as wings, in addition to safety concerns. Secondly, iterative elements in the development of the 777 can also be identified. They appear to be related to the digitalization of development, in particular using CAD tools for a process called digital pre-assembly. While the waterfall process elements were well reflected in the project’s official discourse, the iterative elements were seemingly adopted ad-hoc, which suggest that their further exploration is worthwhile.