US manufacturer's 787 programme has set revolutionary standards for managing a major civilian aircraft project
When the history of the second century of flight is written, the 787 will be seen as a pivot point around which the business of building airliners changed for ever. For Boeing, the roll-out culminates an arduous, decade-long journey back from the dark days of 1997, when production problems halted the 737 and 747 lines and plunged the company to its first financial loss in 50 years.
It is hard to play down the changes Boeing has been through since it last rolled out an all-new airliner, the 777 in 1994. It has balanced its civil and military businesses through merging with McDonnell Douglas - which helped it survive post- 9/11 - and moved headquarters from its birthplace, Seattle, to Chicago. Ethics violations have forced the resignations of two chief executives - the architects of its transformation - in 15 months. It has brought in a chief executive capable of restoring its reputation.
Boeing is at its strongest for 10 years, with revenue, cashflow and backlog back to record levels following a steep decline after 9/11. It has recovered its credibility with customers and investors.
Boeing has been shaped by series of false steps, and the lessons learned from them - failure of its production system in 1997, stagnation of its product development strategy in the late 1990s, cancellation of the Sonic Cruiser in 2002, loss of market dominance to Airbus, and crises in corporate leadership. Now the company has re-engineered itself by selling off its fabrication plants to focus on design and final assembly, outsourcing most of the 787 to risk-sharing partners and taking a technological leap beyond Airbus in composite structures and more-electric systems.
These were all huge changes for Boeing, and its suppliers, and are now being emulated by Airbus as it implements its Power8 restructuring in the wake of its own production failures and management shortcomings. The European manufacturer's moves to sell off fabrication plants, outsource work to risk-sharing suppliers, strengthen its corporate governance and restore its reputation echo everything its US rival has been through. And the fulcrum for this change is the A350 XWB, which has emerged belatedly as its competitor to the 787.
Boeing's problems of a decade ago were a result of its success, as efforts to double output strained its production system. It has put a new system in place for the 787, one that relies heavily on supplier partners, and one that will also be strained as it beds down the manufacturing technology and ramps up the production rate.
Source: Flight International
