The Creation of Configuration Management

The Minuteman project was the critical turning point for air force ICBM pro­grams. First, its use of solid propellants instead of troublesome liquids greatly simplified and decreased the dangers of ICBM launch operations. Second, the Minuteman assembly and test contractor, Boeing, brought to the Inglewood complex a new management technique that would become the centerpiece of the air force’s R&D management process: configuration management. The combined effect of solid propellants and configuration management was a dramatic improvement in ICBM reliability and cost predictability.

By 1957, a solid-propellant alternative to troublesome liquid-fueled ballis­tic missiles such as Atlas and Titan became feasible. Col. Ed Hall, Schriever’s propulsion manager, had, along with R-W and a number of contractors, been studying solid propellant technology for some time and had evidence to show that it could be developed for large-scale ICBMs. Hall pointed out to Tech­nical Director Charles Terhune that solid-propelled rockets did not involve costly, time-consuming, and dangerous liquid-propellant loading procedures. Although liquid-propelled rockets had higher performance, it took several hours to prepare them for launch. Solids, on the other hand, could be launched within seconds; once loaded with propellants and placed in their launch configuration, they were ready to go with the push of a button. Hall now had evidence to show that solids, which heretofore could perform ade­quately with only a small size, could now be manufactured and perform ade­quately on a much larger scale, making solid-propellant ICBMs feasible.36 Solid propellants eliminated dangerous liquid-propellant loading operations that destroyed launch pads and killed workers. This in itself was a tremen­dous advantage. However, the use of solid propellants did nothing to fix subtle problems associated with unintended component interactions resulting from poor designs, or worse, resulting from flight hardware that did not match any­one’s design.

On Atlas and Titan test flights, engineers found that a number of test fail­ures resulted from mismatches between the missile’s design and the hardware configuration of the missile on the launch pad. In the rush to fix problems, the launch organization, contractors, or air force had made modifications to missiles without documenting those modifications. To fix this problem, STL personnel and air force officers developed a reporting procedure known as configuration control to track and connect missile design changes to missile hardware changes. Because these often involved manufacturing and launch processes, configuration control soon controlled process changes as well.37

While inspired by problems endemic to ballistic missiles, configuration control drew from the Boeing Company’s aircraft programs. The air force learned about configuration control through the Minuteman project, where Boeing was the assembly and test contractor. Boeing’s quality assurance pro­cedures used five control tools:

1. formal systems for recording technical requirements

2. a product numbering and nomenclature system for each deliverable contract item

3. a system of control documents with space for added data on quanti­ties, schedules, procedures, and so forth

4. a change-processing system

5. an integrated records system38

In addition, Boeing’s ‘‘change board’’ ensured that all affected departments reviewed any engineering or manufacturing change and committed appropri­ate resources to effect it. The air force soon saw the importance of this process innovation and made it into a critical new management process, with its own organization and staff.39

Boeing’s processes supplanted the concept of the ‘‘design freeze.’’ The de­sign freeze was an important milestone in aircraft development, the point when engineers stopped making design changes so that hardware could be built to that design. Once the design was frozen, engineers or operators could make design changes only by submitting a formal change request. Engineers then made sure that corresponding changes were made to the hardware and the production facilities.

Ballistic Missile Division (BMD, successor to the WDD) officers and STL engineers used configuration control to coordinate changes and ensure the compatibility of designs and hardware. The key to configuration control was the creation of a formal change board with representatives from all organi­zations, along with a formal system of paperwork that linked specifications, designs, hardware, and processes. Although initially linking design drawings to hardware, BMD officers and R-W engineers soon realized that by expand­ing configuration control to include specifications and procedures, they could control the entire development process.

Through configuration control, systems engineers linked specifications to designs, designs to hardware, and hardware to operational and testing pro­cedures. Engineers brought proposed changes to the configuration control board. Air force officers soon linked configuration control to contracts, tying engineering changes to contract changes. The air force established configura­tion control in the fall of 1959 on Minuteman; soon, configuration control had been extended to its other space and missile projects.40 Officers and managers vigorously promoted configuration control because of its utility in linking engineering, management, and contracts.

By the early 1960s, the coordinating role of STL and The Aerospace Cor­poration 41 had evolved into a procedure called systems requirements analysis, in which technology development was managed through the control of re­quirements. For example, at the highest level a requirement would be written to develop a ballistic missile system to deliver a one-megaton payload over 5,000 miles with an accuracy of 1 mile. Systems engineers divided this re­quirement into at least three statements at the next level. These three would then be broken down into numerous requirements to create hardware compo­nents, operating procedures, and so on. Major programs involved thousands of requirements, corresponding to thousands of components and procedures. Systems requirements analysis made the design traceable to requirements of increasing specificity.42

Detailed requirements analysis, and more importantly, configuration con­trol, found a powerful advocate in Col. Samuel C. Phillips, who in 1959 re­placed Col. Ed Hall as the manager of Minuteman.43 Phillips, who graduated in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Wyoming, had steadily worked his way up the air force’s hierarchy as a skilled technical manager. After serving as a pilot in Europe in World War II, he started in 1950 as a project engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Through the 1950s, he held an assortment of positions, including electron­ics officer for atomic weapons tests at Eniwetok Atoll, chief of operations at the Armament Laboratory at Wright-Patterson, project officer for the B-52 bomber, chief of the bombardment aircraft division, chief of the fighter mis­siles and drones division, and eventually, logistics chief and materiel director of Strategic Air Command in England. Phillips was quiet, forceful, and tactful, and he brought the tools developed by Schriever’s team to Minuteman.44

In 1959, managers at Boeing, or possibly Phillips himself, realized that by a simple extension of configuration control, they could gain financial as well as technical control over the project.45 The idea was simple. All a project man­ager had to do was compel engineers to give cost and schedule estimates along with any technical change. If the engineer did not give the informa­tion, the project manager rejected the change. With this added information, the project manager could predict and revise the project’s cost profile, along with its schedule. This also allowed the manager to track the performance of each engineer or group of engineers — he could now hold them accountable to their own estimates. Managers tied the process to specific design configura­tions and eventually to the hardware itself. In addition, procurement officials and industry managers could write contracts against specific design configu­rations and negotiate cost changes based upon each approved change. Phillips and others transformed configuration control into “configuration manage – ment,” a critical managerial tool to control the entire development process. Others soon recognized its utility, leading in 1962 to the creation of general regulations and guidelines for configuration management.46

Through configuration management, and also because of its solid- propelled rocket design, Minuteman boasted an enviable development record, coming in on cost and on schedule. Because of Minuteman’s much better reli­ability and launch-on-demand capability, the air force soon phased out most liquid-propellant missiles as weapons. Higher performance made liquid – propellant missiles excellent satellite launchers, and they and their descen­dants performed well in this role. In their capacity as launchers, the Atlas, Titan, and Thor-Delta vehicles attained reliability exceeding 90% from the mid-1960s through the 1990s.47

Configuration management — along with further attention to quality through inspections, training, and associated documentation—became an organizational pillar of the air force’s management system. Its importance can hardly be overstated. Managers from the turn of the century through the 1950s had searched for ways to predict R&D costs and to control scientists and engineers. Configuration management achieved this control on develop­ment projects, as it allowed accountants and lawyers to tie technical modifica­tions to contract modifications, including costs. Configuration management enabled government to control industry. However, the government officials who wielded the authority had make clear distinctions between those doing the controlling and those being controlled. To do this, they would have to modify the anomalous position of R-W.