Original Date: 05/08/1995
Revision Date: 01/18/2007

McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA)-St. Louis’ Problem Identification, Escalation, and Resolution (PIER) process helps manage the life-cycle of problems that occur within a product team’s area of responsibility, authority, and accountability (RAA). Initiated in 1991, the PIER process is a valuable aid in communicating problems and resolutions to the customer.

When potential problems arise, the appropriate RAA team first creates a problem reporting document on a dedicated PIER process computer system. The team then uses program standardized criteria to consider safety, operations, maintainability, integrated logistics, support, and production issues, enabling them to classify the problem into one of five priority categories. Based on the assigned priority classification, the problem is elevated to the appropriate level of visibility within the project management structure. Next, the RAA Team and other subject matter experts develop a resolution to the problem, implement the corrective action, verify problem resolution, and iteratively reach closure. The automated system keeps an on-going status of all activities related to problem resolution and ultimately represents a permanent record of the problem and the resolution process. It is easy to use, accommodates several concurrent users in the database, ensures that nothing is lost or forgotten, and can handle thousands of open problems. There are several types of problem reports that can be generated using this process including aircraft discrepancy reports, field service reports, engineering investigations, hazardous material reports, and Check Six reports.

Numerous advantages have been recognized as a result of the PIER process, including the reduction/elimination of the adverse impacts of problems, and timeliness in problem identification and resolution.

For more information see the Point of Contact for this survey.