Bus 6110 Boeing Case Study

Boeings position in the commercial aircraft market prompted them to start the 787 Dreamliner project. Boeings main competitor at the time was Airbus. Airbus had bypassed Boeing’s position in the commercial aircraft market, which Boeing had dominated since they entered the market in back in the 1950’s. To compete with Airbus, Boeing needed to make jump in innovation and technological advances to reclaim their market share from Airbus. Therefore, Boeing initiated this project to launch a new product in the market to compete against Airbus. “Boeing's vision for the Dreamliner was to make it one of the most advanced commercial aircraft ever built and one of the most efficient to operate.” (PMI)

Boeing was founded on July 15th, 1916 and is now the world’s largest aerospace company. Boeing is comprised of three main business lines, the commercial airplanes, the defense, space, security, and Boeing global services. They employ over 140,000 people across the world in more then 65 countries. (Boeing)

The planned benefits for the stakeholders of the Dreamliner were to increase revenue and lower costs. Boeing planned to achieve this with the Dreamliner by allowing them to fly more days, add new direct routes, and increase frequency of their current routes. The Dreamliner design allowed for the creation of additional cargo room to grow volume the airliner can carry. They added customer preferences for comfort and speed of travel. (Boeing) The Dreamliner 787 would be the first midsized airplane that would be able to offer nonstop flight service that would typically require a larger plane.  (case)

        Boeing strategy was innovative on their approach with the 787 Dreamliner. The 787 Dreamliner project used materials in the 787 helped differentiated themselves in the market. Typically, aluminum was the main material used in plans. Boeing decided to use plastic that was reinforced with carbon fiber, some aluminum and titanium, this concept would produce a light weight but ultimately sturdier of a plane. “This would result 20 percent less fuel for comparable flights and cost-per-seat mile 10 percent lower than for any other aircraft.” (Forbes) Using the new materials would allow pressure to be sustained in the cabin through the duration of the flight more easily and reduce maintenance expenses on the plane. Other advances included the upgrade to the electronical system and the use of lithium-ion batteries. (Forbes)

        The planned results were to “design and deliver a super-efficient plane that would fly as fast as today’s fastest commercial airplanes and encourage airlines to retire their Boeing 767s and Airbus A300s and A310s and replace them with 787s rather then Airbus A330 planes.” The 787 was being designed to tackle several challenges for the Boeing and the airline industry. First one being fuel efficiencies, desire for additional cargo space, environmental performance, and consumer travel luxury.  

The 787 Dreamliner was designed consume 20% less fuel then other airplanes of a similar size. One of the greatest pressures for the airline industry is the rising price of jet fuel over the years. By designing the 787 planes to have increased cargo space, this allows the airlines using this design the opportunity to generate additional revenue. The cargo market for the airline industry is a growing stream that is more dependable then the traditional consumer airline market, especially in hard economic time periods. The Boeing 787 was expected to have “the smallest sound footprint with the quietest takeoffs and landings in its class.” (Case)

Many design elements were aimed at providing a better consumer travel experience. These include larger lavatories, added space in luggage bins, broader aisles to easily move throughout the cabin, increased the window size to 19 – 11 inches for an improved view, and wider seats for a more comfortable and delightful flight experience. Other features include internet access and inflight entertainment. (Case)

Boeing changed up their distinctive design process with the launch of the 787 Dreamliner project. Typically, Boeing would have their design teams create illustrations and diagrams that would be sent off to their suppliers. The suppliers would then create the parts based off the plans and ship the parts back to Boeing. Boeing would piece together the parts to manufacture the airplanes as the parts arrived. Boeing was exclusive with would the choose to work within their supply chain network. (CBS News)

For the 787 Dreamliner project, Boeing hired engineers from 100 companies. Boeing teamed up with these engineers during the design process. The engineers and the Boeing project team shared design ideas, revised plans, and participated simulations. This collaboration was new for Boeing and extremely innovate for Boeing for quality assurance testing, to identify and mitigate areas of risk. (CBS News)

Supply chain strategy including sourcing

 ∙ Manufacturing process

∙ Impacts to inventory

∙ What happened with the execution of Boeing’s planned strategy – did Boeing achieve planned results? ∙ What were Boeing’s responses to the issues identified?

 ∙ What role did senior management play in the execution of the strategy?

        Senior management played a roll in the execution of the strategy by acting vigilant about financing innovative airplane projects outside of their military business. “The idea was to get the risk off their books and get other people to do the heavy lifting for them,” Mr. Aboulafia said. “But the flaw was that led to a kind of ‘engineering light’ approach, and the problems on the 787 can be traced to that.” (NYTIMES)

 ∙ Did you find issues with senior management’s approach? An important part of this paper is your analysis of the issues that Boeing faced