Case Study Boeing Supply Chain Challenges During The Manufacture Of Boeing 787 Aircraft

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Supply, Production, Logistics, grade: A, The University of Liverpool, language: English, abstract: Founded in 1916, at the Puget Sound location in Washington State USA, Boeing is the largest aircraft company in the world, manufacturing commercial aircrafts, military aircrafts, satellites, weapons and electronic defence systems. It has a history of being the best aircraft company in leadership and innovation to design leading aircraft designs. The company uses advanced technology, engineering skills and innovative leadership to design and develop its products. As a result, it is the best in the USA and worldwide, serving many other nations with commercial and military aircraft. To remain innovative and competitive, in 1990s Boeing started considering a replacement of the Boeing 767, due to slow rate of sales. By 16th December 2003, Boeing announce that it was going to assemble the 787 jet in its factory located at Everett Washington . In building this plane, the company focused on reducing the time line from 6 years to 4 years. Instead of contracting the plane from scratch, it was going to outsource parts and issue sub-contracts to other companies in other nations. The process of production requires raw materials and labor, which take time to procure and manage for the companies to come up with the right products. For the Boeing company to produce the 787 parts in the USA, it would have incurred high costs in procurements and a lot of management logistics. To cut down these costs, outsourcing was a nice way out that provided the company with the ability to enjoy the availability of skilled labor and raw materials in the outsourcing companies.

Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Supply, Production, Logistics, grade: A, The University of Liverpool, language: English, comment: Well presented and articulated, abstract: Founded in 1916, at the Puget Sound location in Washington State USA, Boeing is the largest aircraft company in the world, manufacturing commercial aircrafts, military aircrafts, satellites, weapons and electronic defence systems. It has a history of being the best aircraft company in leadership and innovation to design leading aircraft designs. The company uses advanced technology, engineering skills and innovative leadership to design and develop its products. As a result, it is the best in the USA and worldwide, serving many other nations with commercial and military aircraft. To remain innovative and competitive, in 1990s Boeing started considering a replacement of the Boeing 767, due to slow rate of sales. By 16th December 2003, Boeing announce that it was going to assemble the 787 jet in its factory located at Everett Washington . In building this plane, the company focused on reducing the time line from 6 years to 4 years. Instead of contracting the plane from scratch, it was going to outsource parts and issue sub-contracts to other companies in other nations. The process of production requires raw materials and labor, which take time to procure and manage for the companies to come up with the right products. For the Boeing company to produce the 787 parts in the USA, it would have incurred high costs in procurements and a lot of management logistics. To cut down these costs, outsourcing was a nice way out that provided the company with the ability to enjoy the availability of skilled labor and raw materials in the outsourcing companies.

Decision-making on outsourcing new product development (especially innovation projects), such as engaging and managing the supply chain, is far from easy. It may involve addressing strategic and operational risks that might cause longer development times and increase innovations costs. It is, therefore, imperative to select suppliers very carefully and set up an effective management strategy vis-à-vis the supply partners right from the inception phase. Supply chain management is facing enormous challenges, driven by interrelated disruptions that will have a vast and lasting impact. Based on a relevant case study, Boeing 787 Dreamliner programme, this volume offers a comprehensive overview of the decision-making models for outsourcing strategic activities. The proposed model suggests a valuable approach to outsourcing the decision-making strategies for new product development when the innovation is driven by technological innovation.

Boeing 787, the Dreamliner, is the fastest-selling plane ever in the commercial aviation industry. However, its development was a nightmare - the first flight was delayed by 28 months and the first delivery was delayed by 40 months with a cost overrun of at least $10 Billion. Naturally, people asked: What happened? Could it have been avoided?This case provides a thorough coverage of the events, facts and issues for the development of the Dreamliner. It presents indepth information on how the airplane was developed and how the program was managed. It tells the story from the perspective of both Boeing and one of its major suppliers, Vought. The objective is to showcase the challenges in managing today's global supply chains and provide a rich ground for discussions on development outsourcing, program management and supply chain coordination.

“Supply Chain Risk Management is an issue that many companies face and yet few companies know how to deal with it in a systematic and pragmatic manner. While avoiding and reducing supply chain risks are certainly preferable, developing ways to restore and stabilize supply chain operations rapidly after a major disruption is critical for managing global supply chains. Sodhi and Tang present important concepts, frameworks, strategies, and analyses that are essential for managing supply chain risks. Not only does this book suggest some practical ways to work with different partners to manage the risks that are present in a global supply chain, it creates a framework that would enable practitioners to engage researchers to work on this important area.” —Thomas A. Debrowski, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations, Mattel, Inc. “When a firm outsources its operations to external suppliers, the firm is vulnerable to major and rare disruptions that can occur at any link in the global supply chain. Because these disruptions rarely occur, few firms take commensurable actions to identify, assess, mitigate and respond to various types of supply chain risks. By introducing frameworks and concepts along with several case studies and a review of academic literature, Sodhi and Tang treat this important subject with practical relevance and academic rigor. This book will bring practitioners and researchers to develop effective and efficient ways to manage supply chain risks.” —Marshall L. Fisher, UPS Professor, Professor of Operations and Information Management and Co-Director of Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania “This book ties observations in practice to methodologies and research. The rich case examples motivated the approaches and methodologies used to mitigate risks, and in the course of doing so, Sodhi and Tang provided insights on existing and new research opportunities. As a result, this book is highly relevant to both practitioners and academics. Also, the book is also written with management lessons on how risks can be mitigated, and how risks can be contained once disruptions have occurred. As such, it is also a book for management to gain insights and to develop management skills.” —Hau L. Lee, Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology and Director of the Stanford Global Supply Chain Management Forum, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University “As companies have extended their supply chains globally and as the face increasing resource issues, they face a number of new risk challenges. While there are various case studies written about supply chain risks, this book gives a comprehensive treatment of the subject with clarity. The concepts and frameworks developed by Sodhi and Tang in this book would create awareness of this important and yet not well understood subject, and strategies described in this book would stimulate practitioners to develop a holistic approach for identifying, assessing, mitigating, and responding to different types of supply chain risks.” —Nick Wildgoose, Global Supply Chain Proposition Manager, Zurich Insurance​

Just like the world financial system, but for different reasons, 21st-century corporations need a new business model for their enterprise supply chains. The old conventions no longer work in this new world of volatile and increasingly unpredictable demand and supply. The enterprise needs to become more 'connected' to its own parts, as well as its partners up and down the chains it participates in. So too, we need to embrace new ways of looking at customers to gain deeper, more insightful impressions of what they are telling us about the way they want to buy our products and services. Finally, these signals need converting into corresponding action, driven by the people in the business, leaders and staff alike, who are aligned to their customers' wishes. This is the world of dynamic supply chain alignment where, increasingly, supply chains are the business. In the follow-up to his hugely successful Strategic Supply Chain Alignment, John Gattorna's Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment, explores how to create and sustain multiple supply chains with a level of flexibility and responsiveness that allow you to respond to opportunities and threats; at the same time aligning with your suppliers, your partners and your customers. When more executives get to this stage of development the profits will flow more readily, and sustainability of performance will not be the same issue it is today. The way forward is right there in front of us; but, says John Gattorna, we must throw off old ways and embrace the new.

Managing Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability, a book that both practitioners and students can use to better understand and manage supply chain risk, presents topics on decision making related to supply chain risk. Leading academic researchers, as well as practitioners, have contributed chapters focusing on developing an overall understanding of risk and its relationship to supply chain performance; investigating the relationship between response time and disruption impact; assessing and prioritizing risks; and assessing supply chain resilience. Supply chain managers will find Managing Supply Chain Risk and Vulnerability a useful tool box for methods they can employ to better mitigate and manage supply chain risk. On the academic side, the book can be used to teach senior undergraduate students, as well as graduate-level students. Additionally, researchers may use the text as a reference in the area of supply chain risk and vulnerability.

Actionable tools, processes, and metrics for successfully managing innovation projects, with exclusive insights from world-class organizations around the world The newly revised Second Edition of Innovation Project Management offers students and practicing professionals the tools, processes, and metrics needed to successfully manage innovation projects, providing value-based innovation project management metrics as well as guidance for how to establish a metrics management program. The highly qualified author analyzes innovation from all sides; through this approach, Innovation Project Management breaks down traditional project management methods and explains why and how innovation projects should be managed differently. The Second Edition includes exclusive insights from world-class organizations such as IBM, Hitachi, Repsol, Philips, Deloitte, IdeaScale, KAUST, and more. It includes six all new case studies, featuring a dive into brand management innovation from Lego. Each case study contains questions for discussion, and instructors have access to an Instructor's Manual via the book's companion website. Specific ideas discussed in Innovation Project Management include: Continuous versus discontinuous innovation, incremental versus radical innovation, understanding innovation differences, and incremental innovation versus new product development Identifying core competencies using SWOT analysis and nondisclosure agreements, secrecy agreements, and confidentiality agreements Implications and issues for project managers and innovation personnel, active listening, pitching the innovation, and cognitive biases Measuring intangible assets, customer/stakeholder impact on value metrics, customer value management programs, and the relationship between project management and value??? With its highly detailed and comprehensive coverage of the field, and with case studies from leading companies to show how concepts are applied in real-world situations, Innovation Project Management is a must-have title for practicing project managers, as well as students in project management, innovation, and entrepreneurship programs.