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Globalized production has become a staple in many industries, but the defense industry is a unique sector where maintaining national capabilities has been given greater weight. The growing cost of defense platforms, and shrinking defense budgets in many first and second world countries, are now driving growing internationalization of the defense industry as well. At work, this means engineers need to pick up more project management skills, and entire companies are shifting toward “integration” skills that place a greater premium on good project management as a core corporate competency.

Education and training go hand in hand with these trends. One new option is Podcasts, “on-demand radio shows, to go” that are available via the internet, and downloadable to an MP3 music player via iTunes or workarounds. With the right connectors, or a CD burner, podcasts can even be played in the car during your morning commute. The Project Management Podcast™ is one option, and episode 56 is especially applicable to DID readers [MP3 Podcast | accompanying PDF presentation]:

RAAF-3 assembly

“Tim Covington, PMP, was the Project Manager of the Boeing C17 Single Line Project, the largest lean manufacturing project ever attempted on the C17 Program. In today’s interview of The Project Management Podcast™ we explore this large project. We discuss the goals and challenges involved, the success factors that enabled Tim and his core team to successfully deliver the project, the awards the project has won and Tim’s tips to project managers who are embarking on similarly large projects. And just to break from our usual routine, we asked Tim not 10, but 11 final questions. We also continue our book giveaway of Quentin Fleming’s book “Project Procurement Management” and we answer a listener question from our voice mail line.”