4-3 Short Paper: The Boeing Company A supply chain is a series of integrated processes within and across a company that produce a product or service to meet the demands of a consumer (Krajewski, et. al., 2013). Every company has a specific supply chain design and this design is implemented to meet the company’s competitive priorities. Supply chain management refers to the coordination of the company’s processes with those of customers and suppliers to match the flow of services, materials, and information with customer demand. In today’s global market companies are choosing to outsource many of their processes in order to save time and money. While outsourcing and decentralizing many supply processes may seem to be more cost effective, …show more content…
This resulted in suppliers who did not input accurate and timely information, in part due to cultural differences and lack of trust. Neither Tier 1 suppliers nor Boeing became aware of problems in a timely fashion which was time consuming and costly. The second set of problems with the 787 project arose from a lack of oversight and quality control (Denning, 2013). The Tier 1 suppliers were put in charge of coordinating Tier 2 and 3 suppliers however there were no funds or manpower set aside to assist these suppliers with issues or concerns. Tier 1 suppliers ran into issues surrounding time zone differences, language differences, and cultural differences. Many of the Tier 1 suppliers did not possess the necessary skills to manage Tier 2 suppliers nor the know-how to develop different sections of the aircraft. This resulted in significant delays and costly training sessions with the Tier 1 suppliers. Boeing did not anticipate the additional costs associated with these issues. The company ran into quality issues early as some of the parts did not fit together properly as a result of improper quality control and training (Hiltzik, 2011). With the past production of the aircraft 737 and 747, Boeing gave suppliers detailed blueprints of parts in order to assure proper specifications and quality. Instead of following this old model for the 787, Boeing gave suppliers less detailed specifications and required them to create their
Students will have to use analytical tools to come up with decisions for the aforementioned questions. The case also provides an opportunity for the students to compare the complex nature of an aerospace supply chain with other industries such as automobiles. The case is suitable for supply chain management course as well as advanced operations management course at MBA as well as for executive program.
The concern for the technical gamble in development of the new 787 aircraft blinded the senior company managers to key outsourcing and coordination issues. With more than 70 percent of the aircraft manufactured, assembled, and shipped from foreign suppliers it was too large of a gamble with no quality control or redundancy for supply sources or assembly point. Complete reliance on one source for each key component created an unnecessary multi point of failure. In addition, the quality control measures were not put into place at the factory location to ensure system, assembly, and material where up to the contracted required standards prior to departure from the manufacture/assembly point. Other shipping concern also provided possible unnecessary
The objective of this research is to examine non-conformance records (NCR) routed back for documented defects during the assembly process of Company C (name changed to protect company's integrity) and how their quality has impacted the integrity of the build procedure. Documenting non-conformance record defects has lessened the value of a product or service and often leads to the customer choosing to walk away from a deal,
Our reasoning behind how we determined supplier engagement, set production levels, and allocated capacity among the suppliers were based on several aspects. We decided to choose one international supplier as well as one domestic supplier. This was due to the fact that we wanted to balance out lead times and unit costs. We chose Far Far Away because it had a $1 million set up cost, and the production costs were lower as well. We choose Pretty Close due to the zero month lead time, and the $1 million set up cost. We choose the suppliers with the smaller set up costs due to the fact that we paid $2 million for the creation of the industry conference, and we wanted to be more conservative in the first couple of years. During the last two
The general Aerospace inventory network can be grouped among OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, Tier 2 suppliers and Tier 3 suppliers. Customarily, substantial airplane makers frequently alluded to as OEMs, will indicate their needs to the Tier 1 suppliers. OEMs are in charge of general outlining and assembling, which are regularly alluded to as the most basic segment of the worth chain and every now and again confront section obstructions because of high speculation necessities and innovative abilities. Level 2 suppliers produce flying machine parts as per the Tier 1 suppliers' particulars. Level 3 suppliers are in charge of giving fundamental segments needed by different sellers that are available higher in the worth chain. Be that as it may, with the
There are multiple major problems involving all facets of the Eagle Manufacturing Company. The primary problem, in my opinion, is the simple lack of communication between department heads, management and employees, and just within the company as a whole. The fact that the supply
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has come into the market as a revolutionary aircraft. There are many advancements and with the advancements have come many problems. Ultimately, Boeing will be able to restore the reputation of the Dreamliner, simply because the aircraft is state-of-the-art and Boeing is doing its best to solve the problems that have occurred.
Boeing use a system called Integrated Management System where it has various contracts with different suppliers such as Honeywell Aerospace and UFC Aerospace. This allows reducing in maintenance-related costs of airlines significantly. These companies provide maintenance and spare parts. The inventory
Suppliers were billed for full loss caused by defective parts supplied by them Scrap cost were assigned to work team responsible for the process. .This aligned to their no-rework policy and also to their team approach and responsibility sharing where the supplier and the work group suffer the costs.
Company officials, however, are keeping a watchful eye on their international partners to ensure the aircraft sections are delivered on time. Any more missteps or delays could end up in a disastrous domino effect, forcing Boeing to postpone the 787’s first flight. Just last month, Vought Aircraft, one of Boeing’s major partners on the 787, fired a top executive because of production snafus and delays on fuselage sections.
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.
1. What aspects of Boeing's supplier relations program specifically address reduce inventories; maintain quality, regulatory compliance, and competiveness?
Boeing contracted with over 50 suppliers after their decision to outsource 60% of its design and production. This decision was to reduce the cost, this was a very good decision in terms of reducing cost but Boeing should have given a thought about the risks of outsourcing, which in the end hit them real hard. The supply chain of Boeing was designed in such a way that Boeing functions as the final assembler and the integrator. The supply chain was so extensive that parts of the 787 were being moved globally before they reached the final assembly unit. The 787’s wings were going from Japan to Washington, fuselage sections 43 from Japan to South Carolina and then to Washington. There was a lack of communication and coordination between the design engineers and the
Boeing follows the goal of “to find and apply the best, most innovative technologies and processes in the world to improve our products and services” (Boeing Frontiers, 2005). By utilizing the contents of this quote it is apparent at what Boeing is best at accomplishing internally which is their innovations through R&D and their supply chain management system. These assets improve their products and services enabling Boeing to become the aerospace conglomerate of today. By analyzing these processes and the products they create will give a better look into the value, rarity, imitability, and organization that each holds along with demonstrating their strengths, weaknesses, and other organizational situations.
In the past, through the entire development process from design to production, the Boeing took initiative by itself. However, in order to mitigate the risk, it delegated the power in conjunction with the responsibility to the partners (formerly, they were suppliers). As a result, the suppliers have stronger selling power.