mgmt 385 case assgn 5

Case:McDonald, R. and Kotha, S. (2015) “Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream” (Harvard)

Assignment 5: What is the global configuration of Boeing’s global production network for the 787 Dreamliner? What have been the challenges of coordinating this global production network and how has Boeing managed these challenges? (In order to receive credit, limit your answer to 500 or fewer words. Please use attached as a source only and cite.

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9 -6 1 5 -0 4 8
REV: MAY 29, 2015
RORY MCDONALD
SURESH KOTHA
Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
On April 19, 2013, the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) permitted the new Boeing 787
airplanes that it had summarily grounded several months earlier to return to service. The agency had
grounded the airplane because of problems associated with its lithium-ion battery. Ray Conner, CEO
of Boeing Commercial, was relieved. The Dreamliner was a technical marvel, and a great deal was
riding on its success. Boeing had delivered the first Boeing 787-8 only 18 months earlier. On that
occasion, presenting the ceremonial key to the CEO of All Nippon Airways (ANA), Conner’s
predecessor Jim Albaugh had made some expansive assertions:
It is not often that we have the chance to make history, do something big and bold
that will change the world in untold ways and endure long after we are gone. That’s
what the 787 Dreamliner is and what ANA and Boeing have done together—build what
truly is the first new airplane of the twenty-first century.1
The 787 represented a radical departure from Boeing’s previous approach to designing and
building commercial airplanes. The majority of the wings and fuselage were constructed of advanced
composites, making possible a super-efficient plane that could fly as fast as the fastest commercial
airplanes while using 20 percent less fuel than comparably sized planes. The business model too
represented a radical departure from past programs: Boeing and a group of risk-sharing partners
around the globe were jointly responsible for the 787’s design and manufacture. These risk-sharing
partners funded their own research and development, and built sections of the airplane at
manufacturing plants scattered around the world; Boeing transported the completed sections to finalassembly plants in the United States.
But the 787 program had not unfolded as Boeing’s top management had envisioned. (See the
Appendix for a chronology of events.) The program was plagued with delays, large cost overruns,
and contentious management/labor squabbles. The first airplane was ultimately delivered 40 months
behind schedule, after several billion dollars in cost overruns. 2 Boeing then had to produce some 800
airplanes for close to 60 airline customers (as of April 2013). In 2013 the company was intent on
increasing the production rate at its two final-assembly facilities.3
HBS Professor Rory McDonald and Professor Suresh Kotha (University of Washington) prepared this case. This case was developed from
published sources. Funding for the development of this case was provided by Harvard Business School and not by the company. HBS cases are
developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of
effective or ineffective management.
Copyright © 2015 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685,
write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu. This publication may not be digitized,
photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School.
This document is authorized for use only by Seda Keshishyan in MGMT 385 International Business Summer 2024 taught by GREGORY THEYEL, California State University – East Bay from
May 2024 to Aug 2024.
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615-048
Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
The Road to Launch of the 787 (1996–2002)
Founded in 1916 near Seattle, Washington, the Boeing Company is a leading producer of military
and commercial aircraft. The company consists of two main businesses—Commercial Airplanes and
Defense, Space, & Security—supported by nine corporate functions. Boeing has dominated the
commercial airline industry since the 1950s, and posted over $86 billion in revenues in 2013. (See
Exhibit 1 for recent financial highlights.) The company has 168,400 employees, in all 50 states and 70
countries, and contracts with 26,500 suppliers and partners worldwide.
Six months after Phil Condit succeeded Frank Schrontz as CEO of Boeing in 1996, Condit merged
Boeing with Rockwell Aerospace and Rockwell’s defense units. The Rockwell units, renamed Boeing
North America, subsequently operated as a Boeing subsidiary. In 1997 Boeing merged with
McDonnell Douglas, its main rival for defense aircraft and space contracts. Condit retained the titles
of CEO and chairman; Harry Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas at the time of the merger,
became president and COO.
Working with Stonecipher, Condit promptly unveiled a vision for the merged company (see
Exhibit 2). Under the rubric, “People working together as one global company for aerospace
leadership,” the Boeing 2016 Vision specified Boeing’s three core competencies, including large-scale
systems integration. Boeing would seek leadership in aerospace by undertaking programs that would
leverage its expertise at large-scale systems integration. “We will continuously develop, advance and
protect the technical excellence that allows us to integrate effectively the systems we design and
produce,” the document declared. The intent was for Boeing to move beyond just manufacturing
commercial airplanes.
The vision statement asserted that Boeing’s two other core competencies—”detailed customer
knowledge and focus” and “lean, efficient design and production systems”— would enable the
company to understand, anticipate, and respond to its customers’ needs and to design production
systems that would be among the best in the world.
Top management would also seek to enhance shareholder value. In the words of the Vision 2016
document, “We must generate superior returns on the assets entrusted to us by our shareholders.”
Condit specified that Boeing would use RONA (return on net assets) to assess all investment
decisions. Some industry observers interpreted this assertion as evidence that Boeing management
wanted to change the company’s identity from that of a wrench-turning manufacturer to that of a
master planner, marketer, and snap-together assembler.4
Boeing’s Strategy in Commercial Aviation
In 2000, three years after announcing Vision 2016, Boeing entered the space and communications
sector by acquiring Hughes Electronic Corporation’s space and communications business. As Boeing
was focused on the merger and acquisition, Boeing’s main rival in the commercial sector, announced
the launch of the A380, a super-jumbo jet designed to carry 555 passengers on two full-length decks,
about 35 percent more capacity than the 747. Several years earlier both companies had explored the
prospects of a super-jumbo airplane, but Boeing had concluded that demand for such a large aircraft
failed to make a “business case” for building one (that is, it would not generate sufficient RONA). 5
Instead Boeing reasoned that its existing family of planes—the 777, 767, and 747—would satisfy
increased global demand. Citing in-house research, Boeing’s senior marketing executives often
publicly asserted in various forums that passengers preferred the “point-to-point” (city-to-city)
approach to travel to the “hub-spoke-network” approach then in effect; the point-to-point approach
would require smaller planes with greater range, not larger ones. 6
2
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
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For its part, Airbus reasoned that the existing hub-and-spoke network was here to stay, given that
much of the world lacked the kind of airports that the point-to-point approach called for. Airbus
research suggested that super-jumbos were necessary to alleviate congestion at global hubs. When
Boeing chose not to collaborate, Airbus charged ahead with the goal of delivering a super-jumbo by
2004.
The year 2003 was pivotal in the commercial aviation industry. Airbus, founded in 1970 as an
unwieldy confederation of four European aerospace firms, overtook the 89-year-old Boeing as the
world’s largest builder of commercial airplanes. The same year Airbus delivered 305 new jets, Boeing
only 281. Analysts quickly crowned Airbus the new leader in commercial aircraft. 7 As NBC later
reported:
It was 2003, and Boeing—the company that defined modern air travel—had just lost
its title as the world’s largest plane manufacturer to European rival Airbus. . . . [I]ts stock
had plunged to the lowest price in decades. . . . Two years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
financially troubled airlines were reluctant to buy new planes. Boeing needed something
revolutionary to win back customers.8
Given Boeing’s vision of moving beyond commercial airplanes and its reluctance to invest in a
new airplane program, longtime industry observers questioned Boeing’s commitment and ability to
compete effectively against Airbus. As some keen industry followers observed:
With no new aircraft programs in place to compete with the emerging Airbus line of
products (including the A380), the technology gulf between Boeing and Airbus is
expected to widen. . . . At present [2003], Boeing does not have any commercial aircraft
that operate with fly-by-wire navigational systems, nor does Boeing have a replacement
for the aging 747 (which is nearing the end of its life cycle).9
Many in the industry speculated that Boeing would soon exit the market for commercial jets and
focus on defense contracts, commercial aviation services, and other businesses. Analyst Richard
Aboulafia observed that after launching the 777 in 1995 Boeing had “spent eight years shortchanging
its product line but returning billions to its shareholders.”10 Airbus’s A380 launch intensified
questions about Boeing’s intentions for its commercial division. Boeing’s stock price, which had
reached a high of almost $70 in December 2000, closed at $29 on October 14, 2002—a drop of 68
percent in shareholder value in two years (partly accounted for by an airline-industry slump
following the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001).
A Blueprint for a New Airplane (2003-2007)
To blunt Airbus’s momentum and maintain legitimacy with key stakeholders, Boeing announced
the launch of a modified 747. But the announcement failed to excite customers; the airplane, first
introduced in 1969, was considered obsolete. Boeing then announced the introduction of a fast
subsonic airplane, the Sonic Cruiser, which excited industry observers but not potential airline
customers. In the face of tepid customer enthusiasm, Boeing turned to a radical new airplane: the
787.11
The business case for the Dreamliner was simple: to design and deliver a super-efficient plane as
fast as the fastest existing commercial airplanes, and to encourage airlines to retire their legacy
airplanes and replace them with 787s. Boeing claimed that the proposed airplane would use 20
percent less fuel than comparable-size airplanes, a potential breakthrough for the industry that would
3
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
lend long-range capabilities to a midsize aircraft (200–300 seats). A 787 would be able to fly as far as
the Airbus A380, about 8,500 nautical miles.12
For the traveling public, the 787 airplane would offer several improvements: wider seats and
aisles, larger lavatories, spacious luggage bins, and 19 x 11-inch windows that would provide all
passengers a view of the horizon. The airplane’s ceiling would feature a calming simulated sky to
enhance the perception of spaciousness. To reduce travel fatigue during long flights, Boeing would
increase cabin humidity and pressure to a 6,000-foot altitude rather than the traditional 8,000 feet.
Beginning in April 2004, customers flooded Boeing with orders.
Product architecture More than a dozen aerospace companies helped Boeing select advanced
composites and aluminum alloys for the plane’s structure. Much of the primary structure, including
the wings and fuselage were built from a titanium and graphite, making the 787 the first commercial
all-composite airplane. This decision would enable Boeing to build large integrated assemblies or
“work packages” in different parts of the world (e.g., Australia, Korea, Japan, Italy), for final
assembly at Boeing’s manufacturing plants in Everett, Washington. As The Seattle Times reported:
Boeing has long acknowledged that every plane it builds contains thousands of parts
built by domestic and foreign suppliers. The “build vs. buy” ratio is normally 30 percent
of parts built by Boeing and 70 percent built by suppliers. The [787 program] would take
Boeing’s reliance on outside suppliers to a new level as it embodies high-level
engineering and “systems integration.” That means its suppliers would assemble parts
into major sections of the plane. . . . [S]uppliers could even do more work that up to now
has been closely guarded by Boeing, such as construction of the wings and assembly of
large fuselage sections.13
To manage the integration, Boeing initiated a mega-contract with IBM and French software maker
Dassault Systemes, which helped implement one of the largest Project Life-Cycle Management (PLM)
systems ever undertaken. To ensure the program remained on time and on budget, Boeing’s partners
had to use the same PLM database and tools.
The 787 standard engine interface would accommodate two types of engine—the GE Next
Generation or the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000. While the interface was a first in aviation history, the team
surmised that financiers and leasing companies would find the interchangeability among engines
attractive, and would value the increased flexibility of the 787 asset. New engine designs were
expected to contribute as much as 8 percent of the increased efficiency envisioned for the airplane.14
A global-partnership model A global team of risk-sharing partners would take equity
stakes; each investor would have a financial incentive to minimize cost and help market the plane in
its home country.15 Media reports noted that Boeing was imposing a limit on the financial
investment required for participation in the program, an approach in line with its stated corporate
objective of improving RONA. A retrospective NBS account later explained:
[The company] was no longer the trailblazing, risk-taking Boeing of a generation
earlier. The company had acquired rival McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Many McDonnell
Douglas executives held leadership positions in the new company. The joke was that
McDonnell Douglas used Boeing’s money to buy Boeing. The 707 and 747 were
blockbuster bets that nearly ruined the company before paying off. McDonnell Douglas
executives didn’t have the same appetite for gambling. 16
A Wall Street Journal account elaborated:
4
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
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At the time [2003], Boeing had focused on building derivatives rather than new
products. Mr. [Alan] Mulally, then head of Boeing’s commercial airplane operations,
had to persuade CEO Harry Stonecipher [the company’s largest shareholder and former
CEO of McDonnell Douglas] and others to pursue a costly all new aircraft. Mr.
Stonecipher and his allies were reluctant to commit to a new jetliner unless the cost fell
sharply.17
In late 2003, Condit resigned as CEO and was replaced by Stonecipher. To persuade the board of
directors to sign off on the 787 program, Mulally and the 787 team had to convince important
partners to take on half of the program’s estimated $10 billion development costs. After approval by
the board, Mike Bair, a 24-year veteran, was appointed VP and general manager of the program. The
group of engineers assembled to help Bair collectively had over 100 years of experience building
airplanes.
Exhibit 3 shows the team initially assembled to manage the 787 program. Exhibit 4 is Boeing’s
blueprint for its new global-partnership strategy product architecture. The global-partnership model
entailed distributed manufacturing, distributed engineering, air transportation of large airplane
sections, and final assembly.
Distributed engineering
In the past Boeing had worked with partners in a mode called
“build to print”: engineers developed a design and detailed drawings (often hundreds of pages) for
every part of the plane, and then contracted to build the parts to exact specifications. The 787
program was different. Boeing wanted its 787 partners to “build to performance,”: that is, the
detailed drawings and tooling would be the direct responsibility of Boeing’s partners—along with
the financial risk of participating in the project.
Boeing would focus on the airplane’s architectural definition, and the fundamental analyses that
were required to get it certified, higher-level capabilities that their risk-sharing partners lacked. The
premise behind letting partners do much of the design, was that they could them optimize their
factories for efficient production.
Distributed manufacturing Boeing’s approach to manufacturing the 787 also differed
significantly from past programs. Its partner teams would be responsible for large structural sections,
including the wings.
Japan’s leading aircraft manufacturers—Kawasaki, Fuji, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries—would
take on much of the airplane’s structural work and the wings. These risk-sharing partners joined
Boeing’s new global engineering and production network in keeping with the network architecture
laid out in Vision 2016. Boeing had a 30-year relationship with the Japanese partners and liked the
disciplined approach they brought to the table. The Italian partners provided some unique
intellectual property that Boeing did not have access to.
As Phil Condit explained in 2008, a few years after leaving the company:
As driven by our 2016 strategy, Boeing has been building a unique capability to
effectively work with global partners in collaborating on major components of an
airplane, and integrating them into a highly reliable completed commercial airplane
system. The 787 is the latest manifestation of this capability, with Tier 1 “stuffed” major
components such as the wings, tails, fuselage, and engines. . . . There is a lot of concern
[in the media] about us having a global partner build the wing of the airplane. The
arguments went along the lines that the wing design and manufacture is Boeing’s
5
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
DNA—we can’t allow an outsider to build the wing. The 2016 strategy indicates
otherwise. In fact, the reason we originally built the wings ourselves is that it was so big
and difficult to transport, the costs were too high to ship from someplace else. Other
than that consideration, there was no secret event compelling us to build the wing inhouse.18
Exhibit 5 is a simplified illustration of the production network for the 787, and of the approach
that Boeing employed to build the airplane as of 2004. The lower-case e connotes the relatively
diminished role of Boeing engineering personnel relative to past programs. This configuration
reduced Boeing’s financial risk because its partners bore the significant R&D costs.
Boeing intended to certify and deliver the airplane by 2008. The plane’s configuration was
scheduled to be finalized by the end of 2005; the first flight test was scheduled for 2007.
The wings were made at Mitsubishi Heavy Industry and Fuji Heavy Industry’s new facilities at
Nagoya, Japan, and air-transported to Boeing in Everett. The main landing-gear wheel well, the
forward fuselage, and the center-wing box were built and air-transported from Kawasaki’ Heavy
Industry’s Nagoya factory to the Global Aeronautica [GA] factory in Charleston, South Carolina.
Alenia, the Italian partner, made the center fuselage and transported it to the GA factory in
Charleston (GA was a joint venture between Vought and Alenia). The horizontal stabilizers would be
delivered to Vought’s Charleston factory, which also made the aft-fuselage sections. Spirit, a Boeing
spinoff in Wichita, Kansas, made the forward fuselage. The rightmost rectangle in Exhibit 5
demarcates Boeing’s boundaries, showing the company as a separate entity central to the modular
product strategy.
Air transportation and final assembly To speed up transport of aircraft sections to the final
assembly site, Boeing employed air transportation for parts delivery, a first for the company. This
approach also embodied the lean-management principles espoused by the Vision 2016 document.
The expected delivery time was one day; other programs’ delivery times had been as long as 30 days.
Air transport was expected to result in a savings of 20–40 percent over traditional shipping
approaches. Boeing estimated that the savings would allow its initial investment in air-transport
assets to be recouped during the first few years of production. The company relied on four modified
747-400s, aptly named “Dreamlifters,” to move the 787 components.
Boeing estimated that final assembly of a plane could be accomplished in three days, saving
valuable assembly time. This was possible because unlike metals, composites contract or expand with
changing temperatures. Also, the plane’s body “barrel” sections could be built in one piece, using
robots.19
Bair and his team had spent three years developing the blueprint for the 787 and setting up the
manufacturing network. On July 8, 2007, a date chosen for its symbolic value (7/8/07), Boeing rolled
out the first airplane, an event that officially marked the end of the design phase. By then customers
had ordered hundreds of airplanes (see Exhibit 6). It was now up to Boeing to deliver the product to
its waiting customers.
Delays and Boeing’s Response
But beginning in September 2007, the 787 program ran into embarrassing delays—delays that
represented a serious setback to Boeing’s intention to become a large-scale systems integrator.
6
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
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Reasons for Delay
Many industry observers blamed Boeing’s global-partnership model for the delays. The model
outsourced an unprecedented share of manufacturing to partners in the United States, Italy, and
Japan. According to the Wall Street Journal:
Boeing extolled the business virtues of having suppliers from as far away as Japan
and Italy build much of the fuel-efficient new jetliner, with Boeing performing final
assembly. . . . But the plan backfired when suppliers fell behind in getting their jobs
done [and] Boeing was forced to turn to its own union workforce to piece together the
first few airplanes after they arrived at the company’s factory in Everett, Wash., with
thousands of missing parts.20
Exhibit 7 provides a summary and reasons for the delivery delays as they pertain to the
production network that Bair and his team had developed.
“Many of these [first-tier supplier] partner companies have struggled either in building the
components themselves or getting the parts they need from [second-tier suppliers] in time to meet
Boeing’s rigorous construction schedule,”21 Business Week reported in early 2008. Published reports
pinpointed one particular reason for the delay: botched assembly of the first 787 fuselages at two
factories in Charleston, South Carolina (see Exhibit 7, delays 4 and 5). Vought Aircraft Industries
managed one factory; Global Aeronautical (GA), an alliance between Vought and Italy’s Alenia,
managed the other. GA was responsible for integrating the large fuselage sections from Italy and
Japan with Boeing-furnished parts.
According to a blunt account in the Seattle Times: “The two factories planted here to build big
Boeing 787 Dreamliner fuselage sections began as a disastrous experience in outsourcing. Their
incomplete work played a large part in the snafus that snarled the final assembly line in Everett that
has delayed the 787’s first flight by 14 months.”22 Elmer Doty, CEO of Vought, responded sharply:
Vought’s role in the venture became problematic when the supply chain broke down
and work that was to be completed by other major suppliers arrived in Charleston
unfinished. . . . The problem was Vought had no control over the procurement of those
large pieces [from Kawasaki, the Japanese partner]. Boeing as the prime contractor was
responsible for managing those major partners. . . . To manage the traveled work
efficiently, you need that responsibility. . . . That is best done by the prime [contractor,
Boeing].23
Doty blamed Boeing’s network design and reporting relationships for the delays.
Media accounts also blamed problems at the Spirit Aerosystems plant, formerly Boeing Wichita,
for early delays (see Exhibit 7, delay 1). Spirit was responsible for the forward fuselage, including the
cockpit installation; Honeywell was responsible for computer code that ran the airplane’s flight
control.24
Alongside these supply-chain and partner-capability issues, Boeing machinists objected to
Boeing’s global-partnership model and the outsourcing it entailed. In 2008 the machinists decided to
strike. The eight-week work stoppage resulted in further delay (see Exhibit 7, delay 5).
7
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Management’s Response
Top management defended its approach. Jim McNerney, who had succeeded Harry Stonecipher
as CEO in 2005 when Stonecipher violated the company’s code of conduct, readily admitted Boeing’s
execution problems, but saw no reason to change the overall approach. In McNerney’s words:
The global partnership model of the 787 remains a fundamentally sound strategy. It
makes sense to utilize technology and technical talent from around the world. It makes
sense to be involved with the industrial bases of countries that also support big
customers of ours. But we may have gone a little too far, too fast in a couple of areas. I
expect we’ll modify our approach somewhat on future programs—possibly drawing the
lines differently in places with regard to what we ask our partners to do, but also
sharpening our tools for overseeing overall supply chain activities. 25
In an open letter to Boeing employees, McNerney described some of the delays (specifically Delay
4 in Exhibit 7):
Two themes have emerged from the 787 at this early stage in its life. One centers on
innovation, the other on execution. . . . Fundamental game-changing innovation like
what we’re pursuing on the 787 usually has a “bleeding-edge” quality; it goes beyond
“leading edge” into a realm where both the risks and the potential returns are high.
As example of bleeding-edge innovation, published reports pointed to problems with composites,
specifically with the carbon-fiber technology used for structural sections of the airplane, including the
wing box designed by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Redesigning the wing box—which according to
the 787 blueprint was the responsibility of Boeing’s partner [Kawasaki]—now became Boeing’s
problem.
Responding to Delays
Within days of announcing the first delay in September 2007, Mike Bair was reassigned and
replaced by Pat Shanahan as vice president and general manager of the 787 program. Shanahan, who
had joined Boeing in 1986, had recently been credited with turning around the Chinook helicopter,
the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor airplane, and ground-based missile-defense programs at Boeing’s Defense
division. By this time, too, Alan Mulally had left Boeing to head Ford Motor Company.
Changes under Pat Shanahan (October 2007–December 2008)
Shanahan quickly made changes in the lineup of the 787 executive team and reassigned
responsibilities for airplane development, the global-supply chain, and final assembly and delivery.
Under Shanahan’s leadership, program managers took steps to address the delay and get the 787
back on schedule.
Promoting collaboration Shanahan reassigned engineers to the 787 program from other
divisions, and assigned them responsibility for specific parts, such as electrical systems, structures,
and computers.26 Importantly, the engineers’ role thus shifted from passive observer to active
participant. This approach resulted in part from McNerney’s directive that Boeing managers “take a
more aggressive role in sticking their noses into suppliers’ operations, including stationing Boeing
employees in every major supplier’s factory.”27
Boeing engineers began to collaborate intensely with partner firms to resolve immediate issues
8
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
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and avoid future delays. Boeing threw money at the delays (about $2 billion in additional R&D
expenses) and, according to The Wall Street Journal, dispatched “hundreds of its own employees to
attack problems at plants in Italy, Japan and South Carolina.”28 Boeing engineers and production
workers were co-located at the factories of Tier 1 suppliers to share their expertise and facilitate
integration.
Bottlenecks at the GA and Vought factories in Charleston absorbed much of Shanahan’s attention.
These facilities were staging sites for preassembling fuselage sections from the Japanese and Italian
partners. As Shanahan pointedly noted, only some of Boeing’s partners were having difficulty
executing the agreed-on plan:
We’ve had people, whether it’s supervision helping them incorporating [design]
changes back in Charleston or folks helping them with their supply chain, that’s been
ongoing for a better part of the startup of the program [since 2006]. More recently we
had a higher influx of people into Charleston, because when you compare the capability
and capacity, the limitation is there, it’s not at Spirit, it’s not at MHI [Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries] or KHI [Kawasaki Heavy Industries] or FHI [Fuji Heavy Industries]. That
seems to have the biggest payoff.29
The Wall Street Journal, surveying Boeing’s interventions, reported that “Boeing helped eliminate
four days from the time it takes to drill holes in various fuselage sections when they arrived at
Global, as well as identifying modifications to equipment that will allow the factory to reach full
potential rates more swiftly.”30 Still unsatisfied with the speed of progress, Boeing bought Vought
Aircraft Industries’ 50 percent stake in GA, resulting in a Boeing and Alenia joint venture, in March
2008.
Developing tools and routines for integration The new strategy dictated that, instead of
individual parts, stuffed modules or “work packages” would be assembled at Everett. Managers tried
to optimize the Everett factory for “snap-fitting” preassembled fuselage sections. But when
incomplete work packages began to arrive (see Exhibit 7, delay 3), the Everett factory was unable to
assemble the subsections.
Scott Carson, then-CEO of Boeing Commercial, responded by pointing out that Boeing lacked
oversight of the work being done by its Tier 1 partners. “In addition to oversight [of the program],
you need insight into what’s actually going on in those [partner] factories. . . . Had we had adequate
insight, we could have helped our suppliers understand the challenges.”31 In other words, Boeing
managers recognized that greater visibility on the part of its partner facilities would enable Boeing to
predict, not just react to, supply-chain contingencies (e.g., delays 3, 4, 5, and 6). Ben Funston, a Boeing
supply-management executive, put it this way:
On a legacy program you can pretty much walk out into the Everett factory and kind
of get a feel for how production’s going. . . . The reason isn’t because that’s an all inside
make, but basically because we ship in a bunch of small sub-assemblies and we integrate
it all here. . . . The 787 program is totally different—a different business model. We still
have a global footprint, but those partners are doing all the design and integration and
build so that by the time you get here to Everett, you’re receiving a few sections of
fuselage and wings and we integrate it here. . . . We needed a tool to give us situational
awareness into the production system, the ability to have early issue detection and realtime problem resolution. If you find it here or even at the partner before he’s getting
ready to ship, it’s too late.32
9
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
The Production Integration Center To gain a better understanding of the supply chain, the
787 team created the Production Integration Center (PIC) in December 2008. According to Bob Noble,
VP for 787’s supply chain, the center’s purpose was “to provide situational awareness, early issue
detection and real-time problem resolution for the 787 Dreamliner production system.”33 PIC also
continuously monitored conditions around the world, ranging from natural disasters like tornados
and earthquakes to riots and epidemics, which could all potentially affect production.34
The PIC is a 5,100-square-foot high-tech operations center that operates around the clock. Its 27
workstations each have three screens; at the front of the room a 40’x10’ video screen’s 24 displays
monitor world news and global weather patterns, provide real-time information on production issues
at each supplier, track the functioning of computer servers, and display shipping schedules for the
four giant Dreamlifters (converted 747s) that transport parts to the Everett plant.35 The center is
manned by multifunctional teams of specialists in aircraft design, avionics, structures, technology,
assembly, and logistics, as well as translators of 28 languages.
The aim of the PIC is to promote supply-chain integration and resolve problems as they arise. If
an engineer at a partner site has an issue, he or she can contact appropriate Boeing personnel via the
PIC to help resolve it. An industry observer explained:
Suppliers as far afield as Australia, Italy, Japan and Russia could call in through
translators and show Boeing engineers in the center close-up images of their
components using high-definition handheld video cameras. … Immediate multimedia
communications have eliminated the problem of unclear email exchanges between
distant engineers who work on opposite ends of the clock. 36
In conjunction with construction of the PIC, Boeing developed a set of proprietary routines to
monitor production status throughout the 787 global network. a Managers electronically recorded and
monitored transactions to ensure that problems were addressed and resolved. Using information
generated by partners, the PIC team developed routines and graphic-display techniques to monitor
the manufacturing process using cameras installed at a partner’s site.
As call volumes increased, PIC managers adopted a priority system. 37 Ben Funston, a senior
executive, explained, “If we came in and said this is an absolute line-stopper for the program, then
everyone stops what they are doing at that site and realigns to that priority.”38
PIC bore responsibility for transporting subassemblies from Europe and Asia, and for ensuring
that they arrived at the U.S. assembly sites. It also scheduled transportation of preassembled sections
from South Carolina and Washington.
Evolution of the PIC Over time, as the nature and volume of calls to the PIC changed, the
center evolved. Initially, incoming calls focused on design issues. To address later calls about
production-related issues at partner factories, the center used multidisciplinary teams of engineers
representing the main components of the aircraft. PIC was organized to support each Tier 1 supplier
(that is, groups within PIC were assigned to handle integration problems at a specific supplier). As
a These routines range from recording and monitoring phone calls from partner engineers to sophisticated simulations of how
the production system might react if faced with large-scale disruptions due to natural disasters.
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
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the supply chain stabilized, the focus shifted to the rapid delivery of critical parts needed at finalassembly sites.b
Industry experts agree that the PIC was pivotal in stabilizing the 787’s supply chain, as measured
by fewer delays stemming from design changes due to flight tests and less traveled work. 39 (Traveled
work is work assigned to a supplier but later sent to Everett, for scheduling reasons, for Boeing
workers to complete.) Thanks to improved communication and collaboration, the time devoted to
problem resolution between partner engineers and Boeing was significantly shortened.
Changes under Scott Fancher (December 2008–February 2012)
As supply-chain issues were addressed and progress was made, Scott Fancher succeeded
Shanahan as VP and general manager of the 787 program. Fancher was responsible for day-to-day
operations. He had previously headed Boeing’s missile-defense systems, a U.S. defense-related
program. Fancher would report to Shanahan, now in charge of all Boeing commercial aircraft
programs.
Asked about delays, Fancher responded:
You know, you get into a situation where either some of the first tiers or their subtiers simply aren’t able to perform. There could be a lot of reasons for that; it could be
they are in financial stress, it could be that technically they’ve run into a situation they
can’t handle, or it could be the complexity of the production of the product they’ve
designed is beyond their capability, so we tend to look at the root cause of the nonperformance and how we can help them succeed. . . . As we go forward, we’ll look at
rebalancing the work scope, as we sort through where work is most efficiently and costeffectively done, but by and large the focus is on helping our supply chain succeed, not
moving the work in a rapid fashion [without completing it]. 40
Redrawing Boeing’s boundaries In a significant if unsurprising move, Boeing bought
Vought’s Charleston factory in August 2009. The plant would assemble a major section of the 787’s
fuselage, relegating Vought to the role of a supplier of components and subsystems. It was no longer
a risk-sharing partner responsible for pre-assemble of fuselage sections. In December, Boeing
dissolved its joint venture with Alenia and took over Alenia’s Charleston factory. In doing so, Boeing
assumed all pre-assembly of the major fuselage components at the Charleston location.
Boeing reorganized Vought’s factory and took responsibility for assembling the airplane’s floor
grid, previously outsourced to Israel Aircraft Industries; that supplier’s role would be limited to
delivering components to be assembled into full sections by Boeing employees and installed into the
fuselage at the Charleston plant. These changes in organizational boundaries—internalizing
previously outsourced work, reorganizing the roles of second-tier suppliers—were covered
extensively in the media. Areas of responsibility were redefined throughout the global supply
network to match Boeing’s and suppliers’ capabilities.
Building a new plant in South Carolina In October 2009, Boeing announced its intention to
build a second final-assembly plant in South Carolina, adjacent to the factories acquired from Vought
b In 2013, the center was redesigned to mirror the final factory assembly layout at Everett. PIC had developed routines—
protocols for meetings, ad-hoc requests to move large cargo, disruption reports to senior management and partners—to
manage supply-chain integration. Currently Boeing supply-chain managers are replicating PIC-like capabilities on a smaller
scale to increase the visibility of Tier 2 suppliers at other facilities.
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
and GA. Boeing hoped this billion-dollar investment would double its production capacity on the
787. According to one press report:
The news [about construction of a factory] came shortly after South Carolina
legislators approved an economic incentive package . . . tailored to lure the Boeing
assembly plant to the state. The incentive package would allow lawmakers to guarantee
tax breaks and low-interest loans for an unidentified economic development prospect. 41
Jim Albaugh, who succeeded Scott Carson as CEO Commercial in September 2009, gave an eyeopening explanation for the move:
The overriding factor was not the business climate [in Everett]. And it was not the
wages we are paying today. . . . It was that we can’t afford to have a work stoppage [due
to strikes] every three years. And we can’t afford to continue the rate of escalation of
wages.42
Albaugh was referring to a series of strikes at its Everett plants that had plagued Boeing since the
1990s. The most recent, an eight-week work stoppage in 2008, had cost Boeing nearly $2 billion in
lost revenues and delayed the 787 schedule. Following publication of Albaugh’s comment, the
company’s official position was that he had been misquoted and that the location of the second finalassembly plant was based on multiple criteria. (South Carolina is a “right-to-work” state where
compelling workers to join a union or pay union dues is not permitted.) According to the Wall Street
Journal:
Boeing’s main union initially fought plans for the North Charleston plant. The
machinists persuaded the National Labor Relations Board to file a complaint last spring,
two months before the production was to start, alleging that Boeing had selected the
plant as illegal retaliation for the 2008 strike. The NLRB dropped the complaint
following an agreement between Boeing and the union to build the next version of its
single-aisle 737 Max at its unionized Renton, Wash., factory. 43
Analysts speculated that Boeing’s new facility in South Carolina could change the character of the
U.S. airframe industry, as had happened decades earlier when car manufacturers moved production
from Detroit to factories in the South.
Under Fancher’s leadership, the South Carolina plant became fully operational relatively quickly,
and delivered its first 787 Dreamliner to Air India on October 12, 2012. The plant employed over 6,000
non-union workers, with a goal of increasing production to three airplanes a month by late 2013.
Enter Larry Loftis
In February 2012 Boeing made its fourth leadership change, announcing that Larry Loftis was to
succeed Fancher as VP and general manager of the 787 program. Announcing the change, Albaugh
said, “As this program transitions into production, this appointment will take advantage of Larry’s
more than 32 years of commercial production experience and knowledge of Boeing’s production
system.” The previous year Loftis had led the 777 to a record year of 200 orders and was credited
with transitioning the 777 program to a lean manufacturing system. The increasing popularity of the
777 was a major reason that Airbus cancelled production of its A340 model in 2011. 44
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Decisions Going Forward
After nearly three-and-a-half years of delay, Boeing delivered the first 787 airplane to All Nippon
Airways on September 26, 2011. Even as they announced production of the 787-9, a secondgeneration version that would carry 40 more passengers and fly greater distances than the original
model, top management was anxious to apply the lessons learned from the 787 program. One worry
was that a longer version of the airplane could cause disruptions in the supply chain as suppliers
adapted to a different design.
In June 2012, Ray Conner succeeded Jim Albaugh as CEO of Boeing Commercial. Conner
promptly assembled a team to look at the lessons Boeing could take away from the 787 experience.
He was particularly eager to examine strategic issues:

Was Boeing’s global-partnership model inherently flawed, as many of its critics and the
media argued? Or was the global partnership model a fundamentally sound strategy
whose implementation had been mishandled?

What went wrong and why?

How had different program leaders responded to the program delays? Were more
changes called for as production shifted to manufacturing the new 787-9?

Should Boeing continue to pursue a global partnership model for future airplane
programs? And, in light of the history of the 787 program, should the company reconsider
Vision 2016?
Meanwhile, the Dreamliner program was under pressure to speed up deliveries of the 787 to
reduce the backlog of over 800 orders. The 787 program’s production rate was being increased to ten
airplanes per month, seven in Everett and three in South Carolina, by late 2013. Pressure to deliver
more airplanes intensified in the wake of incidents that raised questions about the lithium-ion
batteries in airplanes already in service.
On January 7, 2013, a fire broke out aboard an empty Japan Airlines 787, when the plane landed in
Boston. Two days later United Airlines reported problems with wiring in the same area as the battery
fire on the JAL plane. A week later an ANA 787 had to make an emergency landing when pilots
received a computer warning of smoke inside the electrical compartments. The FAA, which had
already opened a safety investigation, immediately grounded all 787 airplanes pending further
review. After extensive investigation and further flight testing, Boeing made changes to the airplane’s
battery system; it never definitively determined the root cause of the failure. Satisfied with Boeing’s
changes, the FAA permitted the Dreamliner to resume service on April 19, 2013. The first 50 airplanes
already delivered to customers would be retrofitted with Boeing’s safety solution.
13
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 1
margins)
Source:
Boeing’s Financial Highlights, 2006-2013 (in $M except earnings per share and operating
Boeing Annual Reports.
14
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 2
Source:
615-048
Boeing 2016 Vision Document, 1997
Internet Archive, “WayBack Machine Boeing,”
https://web.archive.org/web/20130702000047/http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/companyoffices/aboutus/co
mmunity/Vision_2016_chart.pdf, accessed February 2015.
15
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 3
787 Executive Team, 2003
Michael B. Bair, 46, is a 24-year Boeing veteran who most recently led the company’s Commercial
Aviation Services business. He also played a key role in development of the Boeing 777 and has served in a
variety of senior marketing and sales positions.
Walter B. Gillette, 61, will be responsible for full development of the airplane, including engineering,
manufacturing and partner alignment. Gillette led the company’s development work on the Sonic
Cruiser’s enabling technologies, which form the foundation of the new super-efficient airplane. In his 37
years with the company, Gillette has worked on every new Boeing commercial jet.
John N. Feren, 47, will lead sales, marketing, and in-service support. Feren brings 25 years of
commercial airplane sales, marketing and program management experience to his new position. He most
recently served as vice president of sales for airlines in Americas leasing companies worldwide.
Craig A. Saddler, 43, will lead finance and business operations. A 22-year company veteran, Saddler
has an extensive background in financial operations, most recently serving as chief financial officer of the
company’s Shared Services Group, president of Boeing Travel Management Co., and interim president of
Boeing Realty Corp.
Source:
Boeing Press Releases, January 29 2003. http://boeing.mediaroom.com/2003-01-29-Boeing-Selects-Leaders-for-NewCommercial-Airplane-Development-Program accessed February 2015.
16
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 4
Source:
615-048
787 Dreamliner—Major Partners and Proposed Product Architecture
Molly Parker, “Boeing Co. bringing 787 plant to North Charleston,” Charleston Business Journal, October 28 2009.
http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/31440-boeing-co-bringing-787-plant-to-north-charleston/,
accessed
February 2015.
17
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 5
Production Network for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, 2004
Source:
Casewriter analysis and interpretation.
Note:
The circled upper-case E in the various supplier boxes denotes engineering work passed on to risk-sharing partners.
18
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 6
615-048
Cumulative Net Orders of the 787 Dreamliner, (2004–2013)
1000
909
Number of 787 airplanes ordered
900
816
889
850
846
859
847
2009
2010
2011
2012
800
700
600
500
447
400
290
300
200
100
55
0
2004
Source:
2005
2006
2007
2008
2013
Boeing Corporation Data. http://active.boeing.com/commercial/orders/index.cfm , accessed February 2015.
19
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Exhibit 7
Delays in the 787 Program and Boeing’s Explanations, 2007-2009
Delay #
Announcement Date
Cumulative
Duration
Explanation (as reported by Boeing and discussed
in the media)
1
September 2007
3 months
Problems result from unexpected shortages of fasteners
and the inability of Spirit—a Boeing spinoff—to deliver the
forward fuselage module (see Exhibit 5). Spirit blames
incomplete software code for flight-control systems
manufactured by Honeywell, a Tier 2 supplier to Spirit.
2
October 2007
6 months
Media reports and Boeing blame Boeing’s supply-chain
network. No details are specified.
3
January 2008
9 months
Boeing blames startup challenges at its own factory and at
factories in the extended global supply chain, specifically the
supply chains and capabilities of Boeing’s subsidiaries and
Tier 1 partners.
4
April 2008
1 year
Boeing blames problems with carbon-fiber technology in the
center wing box made by a Japanese partner. The wing box
was too light and needed strengthening. The media identify
this partner as Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI). Though
the problem is the primary responsibility of KHI, Boeing
engineers work on a patch.
Boeing blames botched assembly of fuselages at the
Charleston, Vought, and GA factories. Incomplete work
transported from these factories creates issues on the final
assembly line at Boeing’s Everett plant. Vought blames
Kawasaki Heavy Industries for sending incomplete work and
notes its own lack of authority to discipline supplier.
5
December 2008
2 years
Delays are due to improper work by partners. Boeing must
replace improperly installed fasteners in the early production
airplanes. The media attribute the faulty installation to
Boeing’s poorly written technical specifications and
suppliers’ lack of experience with such work. (The suppliers
are GA and Vought.)
Boeing faces a 58-day strike by the machinists’ union at its
Everett plant. The machinists reject wage increases offered
by Boeing and object to Boeing’s global partnership model,
which outsources 787 jobs.
6
Source:
June 23, 2009
2+ years
Delays are blamed on structural flaws resulting from mating
the wings to the fuselage. The flaws are blamed on
engineering issues without specifying responsibility.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese partner, is
responsible for the wings.
Casewriter. Boeing Press Releases and Public Reports, http://boeing.mediaroom.com, accessed February 2015.
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Appendix A: Boeing 787 Dreamliner: Chronology of Events
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Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
Endnotes
1 “Boeing, ANA Celebrate First 787 Dreamliner Delivery,” Boeing Press Release, September 26, 2011, on Boeing website,
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/2011-09-26-Boeing-ANA-Celebrate-First-787-Dreamliner-Delivery, accessed September 2014.
2 Dominic Gates and Melissa Allison, “Boeing, ANA celebrate first 787 delivery,” The Seattle Times, September, 26, 2011,
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-ana-celebrate-first-787-delivery/, accessed May 2015.
3 Jon Ostrower, “Boeing aims at smooth ramp-up,” Flight Global, June, 14, 2011,
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-aims-at-smooth-ramp-up-357533/, accessed May 2015.
4 John Newhouse, Boeing versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business (New York:
Knopf, 2007).
5 “Delivery Begins of The World’s Largest Civil Aircraft with Wings,”Airbus Press Release, April 5, 2004, on Airbus website,
http://www.airbus.com/presscentre/pressreleases/press-release-detail/detail/airbus-press-centre-press-release-10/,
accessed September 2014.
6 Rick Roff, “A Smart Bet,” Frontiers, June 2003, http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/archive/2003/june/cover1.html
7 Alex Taylor III, “Lord Of The Air: What’s left for Airbus after overtaking Boeing in the commercial aircraft market? Building a
really big plane,” Fortune, November 10, 2003,
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/11/10/352824/index.htm, accessed September 2014.
8 Scott Mayerowitz, “What went wrong with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner,” NBC Bay Area, January 25, 2013,
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/NATL-From-the-Start-Dreamliner-Jet-Program-Was-Rushed-188336221.html, accessed September 2014.
9 Alan MacPherson and David Pritchard, “The International decentralization of US commercial aircraft production:
implications for the US employment and trade.” Futures, 25 (2003): 221, p. 229.
10 Richard Aboulafia, “The Airbus Debacle,” The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2006,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB115076743837384778, accessed September 2014.
11 “Boeing Celebrates the Premiere of the 787 Dreamliner,” Boeing Press Release, July 8, 2007, on Boeing website,
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/2007-07-08-Boeing-Celebrates-the-Premiere-of-the-787-Dreamliner, accessed September 2014.
12 “Boeing 787 Dreamliner Provides New Solutions for Airlines, Passengers,” Boeing Press Release
http://www.boeing.com/singapore2014/pdf/BCA/bkg-787.pdf , accessed May 2015.
13 ”Who will supply all the parts?” The Seattle Times, June 15, 2003,
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030615&slug=7e73question15, accessed September 2014.
14 Stephen Clark, “787 Propulsion System” Aeromagazine, 2012,
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/2012_q3/pdfs/AERO_2012q3_article2.pdf , accessed May 2015.
15 Ibid.
16 Scott Mayerowitz, “What went wrong with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner,” NBC Bay Area, January 25, 2013,
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/NATL-From-the-Start-Dreamliner-Jet-Program-Was-Rushed-188336221.html, accessed September 2014.
17 Jon Ostrower and Joann Lublin, “The Two Men Behind the 787,” The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2013,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324039504578260164279497602, accessed September 2014.
18 Suresh Kotha and Kannan Srikanth, “Managing a Global Partnership Model: Lessons from the Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner’
Program,” Global Strategy Journal, February 2013, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.20425805.2012.01050.x/abstract, accessed September 2014.
19 Bill Sweetman, “Boeing, Boeing, Gone?” Popular Science, June 2004, http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-
space/article/2004-05/boeing-boeing-gone, accessed September 2014.
20 J. Lynn Lunsford, “Outsourcing at Crux of Boeing Strike,” The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2008,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB122083149762108451, accessed September 2014.
22
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21 Judith Crown & Carol Matlack, “Boeing Delays Dreamliner Again,” Business Week, April 9, 2008,
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-04-09/boeing-delays-dreamliner-againbusinessweek-business-news-stockmarket-and-financial-advice, accessed September 2014.
22 Dominic Gates, “Boeing Expertise Speeding Up 787 partners,” The Seattle Times, June 11, 2008,
http://seattletimes.com/html/boeingaerospace/2004470059_charleston11.html, accessed September 2014.
23 Dominic Gates, “Boeing partner Vought gives sides of 787’s missteps,” The Seattle Times, June 11, 2008,
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-partner-vought-gives-side-of-787s-missteps/, accessed
May 2015.
24 J. Lynn Lunsford, “Boeing scrambles to repair problems with new plane,” The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2007,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB119698754167616531, accessed September 2014.
25 James McNerney to Boeing staff, memorandum regarding “Time to deliver on the 787”, April 21, 2008, Boeing, from The
Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/boeingmemo-04242008.pdf, accessed September
2014.
26 Daniel Michaels & Peter Sanders, “Dreamliner Production Gets Closer Monitoring,” The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125486824367569007, accessed September 2014.
27 J. Lynn Lunsford, “Boeing CEO Fights Headwind,” The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2008,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB120906014850342063, accessed September 2014.
28 J. Lynn Lunsford, “Boeing Scrambles to Repair Problems With New Plane,” The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2007,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB119698754167616531, accessed September 2014.
29 Jon Ostrower, “Source: Boeing to buy Vought’s 787 operations,” Flightglobal, July 1, 2009,
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2009/07/sources_boeing_to_buy_voughts/, accessed September 2014.
30 J. Lynn Lunsford, “Boeing Moves to Solve 787 Delays,” The Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2008,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB120671274797471773, accessed September 2014.
31 J. Lynn Lunsford, “Boeing Scrambles to Repair Problems With New Plane,” The Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2007,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB119698754167616531, accessed September 2014.
32 Steve Creedy, “The Boeing 787 team that is leaving a dream,” The Australian, April 23, 2010,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/the-boeing-787-team-that-is-living-a-dream/story-e6frg95x1225857133866?nk=64b17a69d9fe26c9054e74bf8696555b, accessed September 2014. Emphasis added.
33 Jon Ostrower, “Source: Boeing to buy Vought’s 787 operations,” Flightglobal, July 1, 2009,
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2009/07/sources_boeing_to_buy_voughts/, accessed September 2014.
34 Ibid.
35 Andrea James, “Boeing’s 787 production is mission-controlled,” Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 30, 2009,
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Boeing-s-787-production-is-mission-controlled-1303651.php, accessed September
2014.
36 Daniel Michaels & Peter Sanders, “Dreamliner Production Gets Closer Monitoring,” The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2009,
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125486824367569007, accessed September 2014.
37 Steve Creedy, “The Boeing 787 team that is leaving a dream,” The Australian, April 23, 2010,
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/the-boeing-787-team-that-is-living-a-dream/story-e6frg95x1225857133866?nk=64b17a69d9fe26c9054e74bf8696555b, accessed September 2014.
38 Ibid.
39 Jon Ostrower, “PARIS AIR SHOW: Realising the 787 dream,” Flightglobal, June 5, 2009,
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/paris-air-show-realising-the-787-dream-327485/, accessed September 2014.
40 Jon Ostrower, “Speculative musings: What does the future hold for Vought?” Flightglobal, June 1, 2009,
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2009/06/speculative_musings_what_does/, accessed September 2014.
23
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For the exclusive use of S. Keshishyan, 2024.
615-048
Boeing 787: Manufacturing a Dream
41 Daniel Lovering, “Boeing picks South Carolina for the 2 nd 787 line,” The Seattle Times, October 28, 2009,
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2010155279_apusboeing787plant3rdldwritethru.html, accessed September 2014.
42 Dominic Gates, “Albaugh: Boeing’s ‘first preference’ is to build planes in Puget Sound Region,” The Seattle Times, March 1,
2010, http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2011228282_albaugh02.html, accessed September 2014.
43 Ibid.
44 David Kesmodel & Susan Carey, “Boeing Replaces 787 Chief,” The Wall Street Journal, February 25, 2012,
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970203960804577243250629556334, accessed September 2014.
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This document is authorized for use only by Seda Keshishyan in MGMT 385 International Business Summer 2024 taught by GREGORY THEYEL, California State University – East Bay from
May 2024 to Aug 2024.