FREE ESSAY ON BOEING CASE STUDY

BOEING CASE STUDY

Keeping Boeing Flying Higher and Higher
Case Study
Introduction
Boeing has been building commercial airliners since 1927 with the first Boeing commercial
jet airliner, the 7O7, introduced in l955. As discussed in the article on page 172 of the
text. This success is even more remarkable when one realizes that the Boeing Design/
Build process had not changed very much during the past three decades. The system was
antiquated, cumbersome, and inefficient creating production delays, increased costs, and
spawning a huge bureaucracy simply to handle the paperwork. Boeing must clearly be
motivated to bring this World War II era process into the 21st Century.
Airbus Industries' increasingly larger share of the commercial airliner market was a
major force instigating these changes. Airbus had the advantages of government subsidies
to help defray the costs of implementing best design practices, as well as latecomer
advantages. It learned from Boeing's, as well as Lockheed's and McDonnell Douglas',
mistakes and it did not have 40 years of bureaucratic momentum to overcome. Other
motivating factors include the need for Boeing to increase the income from the commercial
aircraft division to offset the loss of revenue due to cutbacks in government defense and
aerospace contracts.
In this paper I will attempt to highlight those topics I think should be covered,
suggestions, and background for those reasons. In this I will hope to show why the Boeing
Company was in need of the much-needed overhaul of the design/build process at Boeing,
the changes themselves as well as the methodology used in accomplishing those changes.
The Commercial Aircraft Industry
The last decade has seen the commercial aircraft industry dominated by two manufacturers:
the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company and Airbus Industries, with McDonnell Douglas, a
distant third. Airbus Industries is a relative newcomer, but it has very quickly provided
much competition to Boeing, surpassing McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed. Airbus Industries
is a consortium backed by the British, French, German and Spanish governments. The great,
and many say unfair, advantage that Airbus has over the competition is government
subsidies allowing Airbus to operate in the red. Thus, Airbus can afford to develop new
technologies without having to worry about passing on the costs to the customers and can
price their aircraft very competitively to lure away airlines from Boeing.
Cost cutting
The effects of the changing airline industry resulting from deregulation in 1978 are
still being felt in the commercial aircraft industry. The competition among airlines for
passengers has resulted in a greater emphasis on cost cutting leading to mergers and
bankruptcies. In addition, airlines modified their routing systems since they were not
limited to certain routes, as was the case before deregulation, changing their buying
patterns for aircraft accordingly. Airlines were now less concerned with having a
technologically superior airplane and more concerned about the cost and efficiency of
that airplane.
Why Change.?
The first question that comes to mind is why would the undisputed leader in the
commercial airliner industry make such a risky, change?. In other words, doesn't the old
motto If it ain't broke, Don't fix it apply in this case? Well according to many
observers both inside and outside of Boeing, the system was 'broke'. To give an example
of the inefficiency of the process that coordinates engineering and manufacturing, it
used to take 800 different computer systems to manage it. This process has been around
since Boeing was building the B-17 Bomber in World War II. The process of tracking parts
in an airplane was called effectinitly and was done manually! A drafter required two
years of training to fully understand the system, and still one-third of the paper work
contained errors. This effectivity just doesn't make sense, and this process adds
absolutely no value to their product and results in tremendous costs.
Regardless of all the evidence pointing to flaws in the system, changing a successful
company is not easy, especially if we consider the cost and the additional time involved.
For the 777, the additional time is estimated to be six months over the normal 48 months
to develop a new airplane. Getting a tremendously large bureaucratic system to move
forward is a daunting task, especially while continuing to produce airplanes.
The Changes;
The changes to the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company must encompass all fields. From the
philosophy of the company to the technical details, every aspect of the design/build
process will need to be modified.
Measurement Tools and Practices
Need: 
All content is integrated and organized to fit each user's needs and delivery
preferences.
Barriers:
-  Lack of collection point for distributed server statistics
-  Split between internal metrics and vendor hosted metrics
-  Lack of direct user identification
-  Difficulty of collecting true costs and true benefits
-  Lack of accounting tools to measure intangibles
What Boeing is doing:
-  Collecting metrics from high volume servers as indicators of growth
-  Using local server statistics to monitor content usage
-  Using traditional survey methods to answer questions about usefulness, abuse, and
value
-  Collecting data on increased revenue, decreased costs, and better use of information
for specific sites
-  Participating in bench marking surveys with peer institutions
Delivery Tools and Practices
Need:
All content being able to be integrated and organized to fit each user's needs and
delivery preferences.
Barriers:
-  Rapid proliferation of tools for content delivery
-  Media hype based on marketing claims
-  Lack of software compatibility
-  Instability of tools developed on fast schedules
-  Lack of common standards for content description
-  Poor content maintenance
-  Poor integration of delivery tools and content
What Boeing is doing:
-  Providing enterprise-wide delivery systems for search and filtering
-  Site licensing search products for local server use
-  Providing product support for licensed products
-  Encouraging internal information owners to develop processes to manage their
information, and making visible those sites that succeed
-  Encouraging vendors to separate content from delivery tools, and to work towards
common content formats
Platforms
Need:
Ensure all content is integrated and organized to fit each user's needs and delivery
preferences.
Barriers:
-  Wide accessibility brings enterprise-wide deficiencies into visibility
-  Platform incompatibilities are escalating, driving importance of common standards
-  Those standards are still in evolution, and often pushed for competitive advantage
-  Problems of scale become major roadblocks for needed infrastructure services
(directory, authentication)
-  Pull between distributed and centralized services is a constant struggle
Publishing Tools/Content Management
Need:
All content is integrated and organized to accommodate each user's needs and delivery
preferences.
Barriers:
-  Most difficult piece of the puzzle to solve, and least interesting to technologists
-  Rich content is essential for better management
-  Agreement on how to enrich that content is not easy
-  Very few standards for content description are available or stable
-  Commercial tools do not lend themselves to software- independent content description
-  90% of the battle is education
What Boeing is doing:
-  Starting small
-  Adopting a subset of Dublin Core meta-data as the company-wide tagging standard
-  Initiating groups to examine impact of XML and RDF on Boeing's existing and planned
content sets
-  Promoting and presenting pilot projects using rich content through cross-company
forums
-  Influencing internal standards boards to address issues of content management vs.
infrastructure management
-  Participating in research studies and other activities related to knowledge
management
Understanding User's Needs
Vision: 
All content is integrated and organized to fit each user's needs and delivery
preferences.
Barriers:
-  Users all have different needs
-  Identifying those needs is difficult
-  Meeting those needs is harder still
-  User expectations are often unrealistic
-  Content is often tied to delivery systems
-  Content is protected by passwords
-  Content sets often overlap
What Boeing is doing:
-  Tracking usage statistics to find high impact pages
-  Using surveys to collect feedback
-  Performing usability studies on high profile web sites
-  Studying specific user groups' information seeking behavior
-  Looking at cultural barriers to effective use of information
-  Lobbying vendors to adopt common content and retrieval standards
-  Purchasing content separately from delivery systems wherever possible
New Philosophy Needed
Vision:
All employees must be part of a team and have the pride that accompanies it.
Barriers:
-  Working as teams can at times be extremely difficult
-  Knowing your employees and your supervisors can cause animosity among sections
-  Trust with in the company must be earned
What Boeing is doing:
-  Boeing is touting the 777 as a new processes not just a new product, a philosophy that
is espoused by everyone from the top down. 
-  Cards worn on name tags were printed listing the mission, goals, objectives
-  The Boeing company mission statement is: To be the number one aerospace company in the
world and among the premier industrial concerns in terms of quality, profitability and
growth. On the backside of the 777 division cards was this mission statement: Working
together to produce the preferred new airplane family.
Mind Change:
Vision:
Change need to not only tangible but in the mind of every worker.
Barriers: 
-  Working together solving problems
-  Realizing the benefits of having every one involved
What Boeing is doing:
-  The I can do it alone  was changed to We can do it together 
Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) Simulation and Integration:
Vision:
Computer Aided Drafting should be used and linked to every Engineer so as to promote
ideas and decrease production time.
Barriers:
-  Linking this type and style of software can be expensive
What Boeing is doing:
-  The development of the 777 was the single largest trial of CAD and the initial
production time results were impressive. The port wing tip of the first 777 was out of
position by 1/1,000 of an inch when attached to the fuselage and the starboard wing was
exactly located to within the accuracy of the measuring gauges where by saving countless
man-hours and money.
Design/Build Teams Goals:
Vision:
Institute teams and publish goals that are obtainable and common sense.
Barriers:
-  Established Companies are reluctant to change their ways
What Boeing is doing:
-  Boeing management was a hand written list of goals including statements such as:
a) Everything works, b) No surprises, and c) Working together. 
-  This led directly to the concept of design/build teams, which were involved, on every
aspect of the design effort. At one point there were 238 such teams.
Business/Marketing:
Vision:
Changes in business and marketing practices are necessary
Boeing will need to be more responsive to the customer. 
Barriers:
-  This can be a large hurdle to cross, as the Leader in the aircraft industry is some
times difficult to change when you are the leader of the pack.
What Boeing is doing:
-  One of Boeing's stated goals and marketing strategy cornerstones is the idea of
service readiness from day one. 
-  Perhaps the strongest selling point of Boeing's marketing strategy is the idea of
customer involvement and giving the customer configuration flexibility. Teams from four
customers, United Airlines, British Airways, All Nippon and Japan Airlines, were heavily
involved from the beginning of the 777 program. Boeing gives airlines great flexibility
in configuring the cabin by making the galleys and lavatories completely modular.
Cost Cutting:
Vision:
In today's economy they must be and remain competitive they must reduce costs.
Barriers:
-  This may and some times causes layoffs for several employees
-  It is unpopular to take the needed steps to remain competitive in a world economy
What Boeing is doing:
-  Boeing has set targets for reducing costs by 25%, defects by 50% 
-  Cut order-to-delivery time by half to six months.
-  A large step toward achieving the cost reduction goal is going to just-in-time
management of the nearly $8 billion inventory Boeing keeps on hand just in-case. 
Will it Work?
Did all these changes substantially change the design/build process for commercial jet
aircraft at Boeing? Yes! Was it a change for the better? Yes! Were the changes enough to
maintain the market share that Boeing currently enjoys? The answer to the last question
is difficult to answer now since the changes are not complete and their effects will not
be known until well into the 21 st century.
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