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The Dream of the Flying Car at Lemond A~mol5i~:S~~'

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Thi~:'casewas written by Christop~ Loch, Professor of Technolo~y Management, and Svenja SoJnmer,Ph.P. candidate, both at INSEAq: While the events described~n this case have happened in feality,aIl {Dames and locations are di~guised. The purpose of this,:case is Dot to discuss effec~ve orin~ffective actions of individual actors in a specifie situat\on, but to highlight the mana,gerial

C1allengesof breakthrough inno~~tionprojects in large organizafions. "

~pyright @ 2003 INSEAD, Fon,tainebleau,France. i :~r,lB. PLEASE NOTE TIIAT DETAILS OF ORDEkNG INSEAD CASES ARE FOUND ON TI-iEBACK COVER. COPIES MAY NOT BE MADi

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He mulled over other options as well. "Maybe l should use a different strategy, and write abook about three-dimensional mobility without mentioning Vol de Nuit at all. The book salescould be an indicator of the market potential. Or, even better, a Hollywood film! Maybe thatwould convince the conservative souls. l definitely want to continue this project, but rightnow, Ijust don't know how."

Chronology

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One gray winter morning in late February 2000, a certain Mr. Finisterre stood on the doorstepof Frdric Normand, Alsace's "idea scouting manager" for external innovative ideas.Finisterre was a tinkerer and private inventor, and had brought along drawings of bis idea: aflying vehicle. Alsace happened to pass by and saw the pictures. Finisterre's idea connectedto something he had long (although unconsciously) been looking for. He was hooked rightaway. "Imagine you're in a gigantic traffic jam, and you put your wings on and simply flyover the traffic jam! We ought to do something like that!"

Concept Generation - ThreeIdeas Emerge

Normand organized a kick-off workshop in March, to which he invited Olivier LeMans froIDthe new car concepts department, and Philippe Ardeche, a senior engine design manager forthe high-end model range. Both were known to Alsace as particularly innovative and as flightenthusiasts. Ardeche brought several articles to the workshop showing that the idea was farfrOIDnew: the idea had been pursued for the first time in 1917. Silice then, amateur designershad tried and, in some cases, succeeded in building prototypes of flying cars (see Exhibit 1 forvarious concepts). However, no one had succeeded in building anything that combined thefull capabilities of a ground vehicle and an aircraft into a single vehicle, nor had full-scaledevelopment been attempted. ln the discussion, it quickly became clear that Finisterre'spropeller-driven concept was impractical as a ground vehicle ("imagine pedestrians duckingfor cover as it blows up a dust storm!").

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Ardeche brought the discussion clown to earth with the realistic comment: "Maybe weshouldn't start by trying to make a sport utility vehicle fly ... let's proceed in small steps."This sparked an idea in LeMans. From weekly department meetings, he knew that biscolleague, Jean-Pierre Breton, was working on a narrow lane experimental vehicle, with ashape that resembled that of a sailplane (Exhibit 2). Ardeche suggested building a flyingmotorcycle. He would talk to bis longtime friend, Roussel, an ex-professional sport pilot whonow had bis own ultralight airplane company and was known throughout Europe.

That evening, LeMans asked bis colleague, Breton, for the narrow lane's package plan. Heworked aIl night and produced the first concept drawings for the "Duosport", which hebrought along to the next meeting (Exhibit 3). At this point, Breton joined the project team,to be able to consider the Duosport's needs in the development of the ground vehicle.

ln addition to Alsace, Normand, LeMans, Ardeche, and Breton, the emerging team alsoincluded Grard Picardie, the original designer of the narrow lane concept that Breton wasnow (10 years later) building. Picardie was now design manager for ergonomies and becamea valued advisor in the team. Andr Simon was a controller with an open mind for innovative

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The advantage of having an established contractor became evident when the contractnegotiations for the Flybike between Roussel and Lemond's legal department dragged on formonths. The contract was signed only in early October 2000, months after the project wasinitialized. Only then did Roussel receive the base motorcycle, which Ardeche had securedfrom Aprilia, and could finally start construction. At that time, the feasibility study andconstructive calculations for the Duosport, performed by the engineering company, PinsonEngineering, were complete.

Prototype Execution and InternaI Selling of the Project

On December 10, the team held the first workshop for everyone involved. ln this workshop,the three subproject teams found out that there were, in fact, three efforts being fUnin parallel,and each sub-team presented their progress update. Alsace had also commissioned a shortfilm showing photos of the three prototypes and interviews with the participants. The filmwas intended as a powerful communication tool to sell the project within the company.

The externalpartnerswereexcitedto workwithLemond- the PinsonEngineeringpeoplehadfirst dismissed the idea of a flying sport vehicle as crazy, and came on board only when theyheard that Lemond was behind it. But several of the external partners were upset that theyhad flot been told about the concept competition. The contract delay meant that Roussel waslagging behind, but in the two and a half months, he had nevertheless managed to produce aset of animated drawings and a plastic model of the aliter skin put on top of the SL 1000Falco touring bike.

On January 29, 2001, the Skyscooter actually flew for the first time over a small airfieldoutside Montargis, with Marchin Junior as the pilot (Exhibit 8). ln February, the 1:6 model ofthe Duosport flew for the first time. (This was actually very difficult and the device crashedseveral times because it was tao small to have a stable airflow on the wings. ln August of thatyear, the 1:2.5 model flew perfectly at the first attempt). Progress was phenomenal becauseeveryone involved had their soul in the project and worked clayand night, even without pay.Several of the external partners reduced their engineering hourly rates substantially, andeveryone worked much more than they billed. Lemond' s internaI team was essentially doingthis project "on top" of their normal jobs anyway.

By the end of April, the project was advanced enough to be presented to Michel Loiret, theCTO. The team presented 1:1 mock-ups of the three concepts, with photos of the successfulflights, next to each other. During the presentation, LeCorse was rather tense. While initiallyenthusiastic about the idea, he had flot expected the project to advance so fast. This was kindof getting out of contrai - where would it end? But Loiret was excited: "ln the nextpresentation of new vehicle concepts to the CEG, why don't we fly the Skyscooter over theheads of the group?"

Unfortunately, the excitement was short-lived. ln the next team meeting, resource problemsbecame pressing. Through different channels, they had cobbled together a total budget of1.9 million to cover all three concepts. The bulk of the money would have to be spent on thefully functional prototypes, but it DOWbecame evident that the budget did flOtsuffice, and nomore money was forthcoming. The team was faced with bard choices as to which concepts tokeep and which to discontinue. The Skyscooter was the first to go. ln April 2001, it wasannounced that the mobility service concept with Aprilia would be stopped. This included the

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