Risk management in the aeronautical industry: results of an application of two methods

Abstract

This article presents the results of two risk management methods, applied in the aeronautical industry, during the development of an aircraft for the executive market. The first method is the risk management in accordance with the best practices of Project Management International (PMI), and the second is a proposal of risk management based on Multicriteria Fuzzy Analysis (MFA). The PMI method of risk management is already widely used by the market. Its terminology is quite similar to other international standards of risk management. The MFA risk management method is a new proposal that requires specialist opinions, through a questionnaire, to identify internal and external project risks, measuring their level of threat to the project success. The structure of the questionnaire follows Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) methodology of the PMI. This new approach generates indicators at three levels: operational, tactical and strategic, which facilitates the monitoring and the management of risks. Despite its complex mathematical base, the MFA method is easier to implement. Both methods reach a similar degree of risk indicators for the project; however, the MFA can be used in an earlier phase of the project, which can avoid some possible earlier risk entanglements. Due to the particularities of each method, both show important contributions to the project risk management. Therefore, complex projects should use both methods to achieve adequate risk management.