Harvard Business School 9-688-040 Rev. April 1, 1991 The Boeing 767: From Concept to Production (A) In August 1981, eleven months before the first scheduled delivery of Boeing’s new airplane, the 767, Dean Thornton, the program’s vice president-general manager, faced a critical decision. For several years, Boeing had lobbied the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for permission to build wide-bodied aircraft with two-, rather than three-person cockpits. Permission had been granted late in July. Unfortunately, the 767 had originally been designed with a three-person cockpit, and 30 of those planes were already in various stages of production. Thornton knew that the planes had to be converted to models with two-person cockpits. But …show more content…
Buyers—primarily the 50 leading airlines around the world—used that knowledge to enhance their bargaining positions, often delaying orders until the last possible moment. Negotiations on price, design modifications, and after-sales parts and service became especially aggressive in the 1970s, when airlines that had been making steady profits began losing large sums of money. Cost savings became a dominant concern. As Richard Ferris, the CEO of United Airlines, remarked: “Don’t bug me about interior design or customer preference, just guarantee the seat-mile performance.”3 The Boeing Company Boeing was the sales leader of the airframe industry, as well as one of America’s leading exporters. It had built more commercial airplanes than any other company in the world. Sales in 1981 were $9.2 billion; of the total, $5.1 billion were ascribed to the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, the firm’s aircraft manufacturing division. Other divisions produced missiles, rockets, helicopters, space equipment, computers and electronics. History The Boeing Company was founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing, the son of a wealthy timber man who had studied engineering at Yale. In its earliest days, the company built military aircraft for use in World War I. It began to prosper in the 1920s and 1930s, when the civil aviation market expanded, primarily because of the demand for mail carrying. At about that time, William Boeing issued a challenge
The Boeing Company designs, develops, manufactures, sells, services, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight, and launch systems and services worldwide. It operates in five segments: Commercial Airplanes, Boeing Military Aircraft, Network & Space Systems, Global Services & Support, and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment develops, produces, and markets commercial jet aircraft for various passenger and cargo requirements; and provides related support services to the commercial airline industry. This segment also offers aviation services support, aircraft modifications, spare parts, training, maintenance documents, and technical advice to commercial and government customers. The Boeing Military Aircraft segment researches, develops, produces, and modifies manned and unmanned military aircraft, and weapons systems for global strike, vertical lift, and autonomous systems, as well as mobility, surveillance, and engagement. The Network & Space Systems segment researches, develops, produces, and modifies strategic defense and intelligence systems, satellite systems, and space exploration products.
This paper of Philip Condit and the Development of the 777; describes the management, and technological changes that Philip Condit made to the development style of the Boeing Company. Before Philip Condit took over the 777 program, Boeing had been making airplanes in the same fashion as it had been doing for 70 years prior. Mr. Condit saw the chance to bring Boeing into the 21st century not only with the new technology of computer aided drafting, but with modern management techniques as well. The 777 program proved to be the perfect testing ground for a companywide change in the way Boeing did its business.
The Boeing Corporation is the world’s leading aerospace company and is the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners as well as military aircrafts. Boeing has teams that manufacture missiles, satellites, defense systems, and communication systems. NASA turns to Boeing when they need something and Boeing operates the International Space Station. Boeing has a broad range of capabilities and skills, which is probably the reason they are the world’s leading aerospace company. With the Boeing headquarters in Chicago, more than 170,000 people in 70 different countries find themselves employed with the corporation and
The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) was founded July 15th, 1916. Boeing is one of the world’s largest producers of aircraft and aerospace systems, producing both commercial jets and defense, as well as space and security systems. Boeing’s operations are extensive and widespread, and can be located throughout more than 150 countries around the world.
After sucessfully selling military aircrafts adapted for troop transportation in the 1950’s and introducing commercial aircrafts model 707, 727 followed by 737, Boeing has since then become a leading producer of military & commercial aircraft.
Company Background In 1916, William Boeing founded an aircraft manufacturing company in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Boeing, who had made his fortune in the timber industry of the Northeast, had moved to the West Coast in 1903-the same year the Wright Brothers made their famous first flight-and became fascinated with flying after he attended the 1910 Air Meet in Los Angeles. Soon after, he began building plancs as a hobby with Navy engineer Conrad Westervelt. Their first plane, the B&W, named for their initials, was a 27.5-foot seaplane that had a top speed of 75 mph.
Boeing Company has been and is still at the forefront of the aviation industry. The late 1990s were a time of trial and transition where the company encountered and overcame a number of
6.2 The Boeing model adopted was to spread the design and development to suppliers on a global scale with costs met by suppliers (Ostrower & Lublin, 2013). A strategy such as this should have been tightly controlled from the outset. Without this control, difficulties in assembly and ill-fitting parts requiring redesign added to the delays experienced by the project (Denning, 2013), with hundreds of Boeing engineers sent to various companies to solve technical problems (Tang & Zimmerman, 2009).
The Boeing Company was formed in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. The following year they had a twenty eight person payroll which included pilots, carpenters, boat builders and seamstresses. The lowest wage was fourteen cents an hour, while the company's top pilots made two to three hundred dollars a month. When the company was short on money, William Boeing used his own financial resources to guarantee a loan to cover all wages, which was a total of about seven hundred a week. ("Boeing History," n.d)
ANSWER 2: Boeing ran into problems with its global supply chain when suppliers failed to deliver parts on schedule. Many students will probably suggest that if Boeing wants to string together a supply chain consisting of unrelated companies located in various parts of the world, it need to make management of that supply chain a top priority. Boeing was contending with various types of problems including poor quality components, incorrect installation of parts, secondary outsourcing, and so on. Students will probably suggest that if Boeing had been on top of these types of issues earlier in the process, it might have been in a better position to take steps to mitigate their effect on the entire supply chain.
The Boeing Corporation is one of the largest manufacturers in the world. Rivaled only by European giant Airbus in the aerospace industry, Boeing is a leader in research, design and manufacture of commercial jet airliners, for commercial, industrial and military customers. Despite enjoying immense success in its market and dominating an industry that solely recognizes engineering excellence, it is crucial for Boeing to ensure continued growth through consistent strategy formulation and execution to avoid falling behind in market share to close and coming rivals.
Due to customers’ needs and requests, Boeing has expanded its product line and services. The long tradition of aerospace leadership and innovation has given the company the advantages. Its broad range of capabilities includes creating new and more efficient commercial airplane, integrating military platforms and defense systems through
Boeing was founded in 1916 by William Boeing. The company started by making small seaplanes with low top speeds. The first customer of Boeing was the New Zealand government. They used the planes for the countries mail, and to train pilots. The real pay-off was when the United States entered World War I and ordered a large amount of seaplanes. Between
As the largest aerospace company in the world, the Boeing Company employees more than 153,000 people in some 67 countries. The great dominance of Boeing is due to its 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas Corporation, an aerospace manufacturer, and its 1996 purchase of the defense and space units of Rockwell International Corporation, an aerospace contractor. The corporation is the world’s number one maker of commercial jetliners and military aircraft with more than 9,000 commercial planes in service worldwide, including the 717 through 777 families of jets
airplanes – 747-8, 767, 777, and 787 Dreamliner – accounted for more than 60% of all twin-aisle