Increasing commonality across their models allows commercial aircraft manufacturers to reduce theproduct development cycle time and tailor their models to their customers’ needs. The cockpit is anarea where commonality is thought to be particularly desirable, since it also simplifies the pilotstraining process for the airline companies. However, no set of metrics is currently able to measure theefficiency of commonality application at this level from a total lifecycle standpoint.In this paper, we propose a set of metrics adapted to large commercial aircraft and taking into accountthe main parts of the product lifecycle. The concept of lead time is central in our measurement ofcommonality, as it strongly influences the value of the aircraft for all primary stakeholders. Weexamine the extent to which these metrics are independent from aircraft particularities (such asphysical dimensions). We indicate their limitations and what additional research should be performedto obtain a set of metrics able to measure the efficiency of commonality implementation for the wholeaircraft.We use the example of two competing medium-haul aircraft families to test our set of metrics. Weevaluate the efficiency of commonality according to our metrics and we compare with field resultsobtained from the manufacturers’ studies and from the results of interviews of airlines pilots. Weshow how our set of metrics can help determining how to optimize the level of commonality for allstakeholders.
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