Ted, > They did it so they could get more plane orders
Brilliant Ted. Which left-wing blogger came up with that theory?
It was in the Seattle Times and other papers several years ago...........and it may end up screwing Boeing in a way they never anticipated. So much for corp. genius and your non insights. Keep drinking the koolaid.
"But there's a dark side to this story. In trying to keep down Airbus, Boeing may be creating a much more dangerous competitor, one that likely will come from Japan, China, or India — countries that will own the markets for new airplanes in the near future and are in various stages of building their own commercial-airplane-manufacturing industries.
To finance the development of the 787 and secure global orders, Boeing agreed not only to outsource an unprecedented amount of the plane's parts to partners in Europe, Japan, and China, but also to transfer to them unprecedented know-how. Before the 787, Boeing had retained almost total control of airplane design and provided suppliers precise engineering drawings for building parts (called "build to print"). The only exception was jet engines, which have long been designed and manufactured by suppliers such as GE, Rolls-Royce, and Pratt & Whitney.
The 787 program departed from this practice. Boeing effectively gave Tier 1 suppliers a large part of its proprietary manual, "How to Build a Commercial Airplane," a book that its aeronautical engineers have been writing over the last 50 years or so. Instead of "build to print," Boeing provided suppliers with performance specifications for parts and components and collaboratively worked with them in the design and manufacturing of major components such as the wing, fuselage section, and wing box. Redesigned Boeing 747s (called "Dreamlifters") then fly these components directly to the final assembly site, where they are "clicked" together, reducing time needed for final assembly from 20 to 40 days to a mere three.
Getting this system to work as envisioned has been a nightmare. It turned out that most of the major components were not manufactured as planned and had missing parts. It took Boeing and its partners more than two years to clean up the mess. The good news here is that Boeing gained tremendous knowhow in making its new global, virtually-integrated, manufacturing network work — a very big deal. Clearly, Boeing has pioneered a system that other industries will adopt.
But there is a dark side to all this: Boeing's bold 787 program has accelerated the inevitable competition from Southeast Asia, and that competition promises to be different and tougher than anything Boeing has encountered to date."
blogs.hbr.org |
