1. Purpose & Governance Principles

This document establishes the decision-making authority, escalation paths, and accountability structure for the CWP-700 Composite Wing Panel Production Program. It is distinct from the Program Charter: the Charter describes what the program will deliver and why; this document defines who has the authority to decide, and how disputes or exceptions are resolved when the plan needs to change — including the staffing correction (RAIDD D-05) that already tested this framework once.

Five principles guide this governance model:

2. Governance Structure

The program is governed through four bodies:

Program Review Board Roster

For the full reporting-line structure, including the two-shift production organization, see the companion Organizational Chart.

3. Roles, Responsibilities & Decision Rights

Every decision on this program falls into one of three authority tiers. The staffing correction is a real, already-applied example of this tiering, not just a hypothetical: the first correction (adding 6 hands-on production/quality roles) stayed within the Program Manager's Tier 1 authority; the second, larger correction (11 more positions, +$1,634,000) exceeded it and required Tier 2 Executive Sponsor approval.

Key Role Responsibilities

3.1 Governance-Process RACI Matrix

This matrix covers governance-process activities only — approving staffing/budget corrections, accepting risk, authorizing exceptions. It is deliberately narrower than, and complementary to, the delivery-execution RACI already defined in the RACI Matrix (FAI execution, MRB disposition, PPAP qualification, etc.). The two matrices should never duplicate the same row.

Also available as its own page: RACI Matrix.

4. Escalation Process

Escalation is triggered automatically once a defined threshold is crossed — not left to individual judgment about whether something "feels" significant enough to raise.

Standard escalation path: Inspector/Technician → Quality Engineering Lead / Manufacturing Engineer → Program Manager → Program Review Board / Executive Sponsor → Meridian Program Office (where product acceptance is affected). Issues unresolved at the PM level within 5 business days (2 business days for structural quality findings) escalate automatically to the next tier.

5. Meeting Cadence & Reporting

6. Engineering Change Governance

Unlike a software program's Change Control Log, this fixed-unit-price production contract governs change through Engineering Change Notices (ECNs) against Meridian's baselined drawings and specs, not budget-impact change requests. Any change affecting form, fit, or function requires a Meridian-approved ECN before it can be implemented — this is a Tier 3 decision per Section 3, regardless of cost impact, because it touches the customer's own engineering baseline. Acme-internal process or tooling changes that don't affect form/fit/function stay at Tier 1/2 and don't require an ECN.

Every ECN, at every tier, is tracked in the Change Control Log — the aerospace suite's equivalent of the PM and Federal suites' own change/mod logs.

7. Supplier & Customer Governance

The program depends on qualified raw-material and tooling suppliers (governed via PPAP) and on Meridian's own acceptance authority (governed via source inspection). This section separates supplier-side governance from the customer-side authority already described in Sections 2–3.

8. Stage Gates & Phase Approval Criteria

Each major stage of the program has a formal gate that must be passed before the next stage begins in earnest.

Every gate requires two things, not one: the specific go/no-go criteria in the table below, and continued business justification — a brief reconfirmation that the assumptions underlying the Cost-Benefit Analysis still hold. This principle applies at every gate below, not only FAI.

9. Independent Assurance

Performance Monitoring (Section 12) is self-reported: the Program Manager and Quality Engineering Lead track and report status upward through the normal chain. Independent Assurance is a distinct, separate check — performed by someone outside the reporting chain being assessed.

10. Risk & Issue Governance

The RAIDD Log records what the risks and issues are; this section defines who has the authority to accept, fund, or escalate a response to them.

11. Quality & Regulatory Oversight

Because the program produces flight-critical structural components under AS9100, quality sign-off carries a standing exception to the normal authority tiering:

12. Performance Monitoring

The Program Review Board monitors program health against the quality KPIs reported monthly via the Steering Deck:

• MRB cases dispositioned within standard cycle time: 100%
• Repeat nonconformances (same root cause): 0
• Escapes to customer (undetected nonconformances): 0
• FAI acceptance within schedule buffer
• AS9100 QMS conformance: current, no open corrective actions
• Supplier PPAP findings per quarterly review: 0
• Program budget variance to baseline: $0 (target)

13. Governance of This Framework

This document is owned by the Program Manager and reviewed quarterly, with amendments to decision-rights tiers or escalation thresholds requiring Executive Sponsor approval; amendments to meeting cadence or reporting format may be approved by the Program Manager alone.

Note: version 1.1's effective date (Sep 28, 2026) predates version 1.0's formal document date (Oct 2, 2026) because the D-05 decision itself was made under the framework's principles before this document was formally finalized and dated — the precedent came first, the write-up caught up to it.

14. Approval

This governance model is approved for use across the CWP-700 Composite Wing Panel Production Program.