Boeing and Supply Chain Structural Improvements Essay

1. Study the networked supply chain concept as implemented by Cisco. What are its strengths and weaknesses?

Dominating the commercial aircraft market for decades, Boeing is considered to be the most highly competitive U.S aerospace industry. “U.S. firms manufacture a wide variety of products for civil and defense purposes and, in 2010, the value of aerospace industry shipments was estimated at $171 billion, of which civil aircraft and aircraft parts accounted for over half of all U.S. aerospace shipments. The U.S. aerospace industry exported nearly $78 billion in products in 2010, of which $67 billion (or 86% of total exports) were civil aircraft, engines, equipment, and parts” (Harrison, 2011). However, its position of influence has lessened in recent years. This is due to its main competitor, Airbus, who in recent years has made significant

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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

Boeing is a global company, considering it has customers in over 90 countries around the world and is one of the largest U.S. exporters based on sales. It also has employees in 70 of the countries that it deals with. Boeing is in a bit of a tough spot with outsourcing considering that they deal with government defense contracts. They are taking large bounds to really work with their global partners. Instead of just outsourcing call sources or manufacturing, they are actually outsourcing engineering and design positions as well. One of Boeing’s executives really summed up their goal quite well with this quote, “One of the things we have found [is that] it 's best to have the people building the parts designing the parts," says Michael Bair, Boeing 's vice-president in charge of the 787 program. "It 's arrogant for us to sit here in Seattle

What is the right supply chain for your product ? is the question asked by Marshall L. Fisher in his article titled, “What is the Right Supply Chain for Your Product ?” published in March-April 1997 issue of the Harvard Business Review. Author raises the question stating the fact that new ideas and technology implemented haven’t lead to improved performance. Performance has not become better but rather in at least some cases, has worsened due to costs rocketing to unprecedented levels.

The Boeing Company is the largest aerospace company on the globe, currently ranking number 24 on the Fortune 500 listing. (Boeing Fortune 500, 2016). Boeing is the largest manufacturing exporter in the United States and is a leader in the manufacturing of commercial jetliners and defense along with space and security systems. The company works with customers in over 150 countries most of which consist of airlines and allied governments. Boeing has corporate offices in Chicago but employs people across the United States and in over 65 countries. The company employs roughly 160,000 employees which represents a diverse workforce full of innovative and talented individuals. Along with the skilled workers at Boeing, the company is also able to tap into the skilled workforces of their suppliers from around the world. (Boeing General Information, n.d.).

The Boeing Aircraft Company started out specializing in the production of military fighter and bomber aircraft during the World War II era and then transitioned to the commercial jet age. It was at this time that the company began producing commercial aircraft alongside military aircraft for profit. Boeing received financial assistance from the government when they initially began development and production but it was not until many years later that their investment became profitable and according to reports, “in the end, the707 was quite profitable, selling 25 percent above its average cost.” (Kerzner, p.92)

Lockheed Martin and Mcdonnel Douglas and starting a fierce rivalry with Boeing that has seen

Boeing’s product is aircrafts. These aircrafts include commercial airplanes freight airplanes, and Boeing Business Jets (BBJ). All of Boeing’s aircrafts stem from their five jet families: 737, 747, 767, 777, 787 (Boeing, 2016). Each family differs in size, engine, build, range, and capacity in order to meet the needs of all Boeing customers. The commercial section of Boeing aircraft focuses on mass transit of passengers and has a jet from each of the five families offered (Boeing, 2016). The commercial airplanes range from small 50 person planes that travel between relatively close cities, to large 600 passenger planes that travel across the globe. The freight section of Boeing aircraft focuses on planes capable of carrying goods to be delivered to and from different areas or regions (Boeing, 2016). These freight versions of the Boeing aircraft family do not come equipped with any of their commercial aircraft such as cabin seating, overhead storage, lights, air vents, or any cabin service features. These are planes intended to hold a very small crew and are basically hollowed out in order to store as much as possible. Lastly, Boeing also offers a wide range of BBJs from each of its families of aircraft (Boeing, 2016). BBJs are much more luxurious than a commercial version of an airplane. They are intended for business executives and to be used by companies or corporations. The BBJs come equipped with couches, TVs, offices, larger restrooms, and other luxury features that

As director of Supply Chain Systems, Teri Takai recommends implementing virtual integration strategies from companies like Dell to portions of Ford’s supply chain strategy. Although there are several key differences between the companies, the restructuring plans of Ford 2000 have set a viable foundation to implement Dell’s virtual integration strategy in inventory management, customer service and support and suppliers’ management. The redesign of the process must include design not only of the supply chain but also of fulfillment, forecasting, purchasing, and a variety of other functions that historically been considered independently within the Ford hierarchy. Teri

Not long ago HD’s supply-chain was an imbalance of separate departments not focusing on their core competencies. Engineers were hiring suppliers when they should have been designing and while production was jeopardized by suppliers unable to meet commercial demand. Not only were purchasing and inventory costs increased as result of inadequacies but operations went from 11% of revenue in 1990 to 17.7% in 1993 (Klamath, 2008).

The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner was delivered to Japan’s ANA in 2011, nearly 40 months after the planned delivery date. The expected delivery was in May 2008, but the fuel efficient 787 Dreamliner’s manufacturing had become complicated due to multiple changes in the design and supply chain implemented all at once. Far from the traditional manufacturing, Dreamliner design consists of many new features like unique design, one-piece fuselage, reduced weight, 20% increase in fuel economy, and reduction in maintenance time. Apart from the changes in design, another major difficulty was the company’s global supply chain network. For the first time ever Boeing outsourced two most critical parts - fuselage and wings. Everything put together, the complications kept increasing and so is the delay. At least when the plane finally the entered the market years later design came out as expected, and there weren’t any sacrifices to the design that had to be made. The plane can hold from 210- 250 passengers on routes of 7650 – 8200 nautical miles and satisfies the fuel

The biggest worry for Cessna was its supply chain management, which it has now used TQM and Six Sigma to improve (Morgan, 2002). There are more than 20 different things that Cessna has done in order to make sure that its supply chain management continues to improve, and the vast majority of those things relate to either TQM principles or Six Sigma. These improvements include: stretching its goals, benchmarking, rationalization plans, full-time commodity teams, a

In order to do so, businesses has to look at its processes from a clean state perspective. For a company to be able to streamline their processes, they have to add value to their customers through their processes. Processes should maintain its ability to add value to customers. For those processes that do not, we can automate them and put the focus on adding value. This will result in higher customer satisfaction, better efficiency, elimination of watse and greater ROI(Park, 2008).