Nuon Chheang Eng

TFBS, MA scholarship student

Lessons Learned from

Boeing 767 from Concept to Product (A)

The Boeing Company was founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing, the son of a wealthy timber
man who had studied engineering at Yale. The company was the sales leader of the airframe industry.
In World War I, the company build military aircraft. It began to prosper in the 1920s and 1930s, when
the civil aviation market expanded because of the demand for mail carrying. Boeing originally relied
on extensive vertical integration. It not only manufactured entire planes itself, but also provided
engines through its Pratt & Whitney subsidiary. Instead, it carefully selected partners, some of whom
participated on a risk-sharing basis, who were the subcontracted portions of each plane and developed
and built parts and subassemblies that Boeing later assembled. The primary exception were the nose
and wings, which Boeing continued to build in-house.
In 1969, Boeing assembled the New Airplane Program (NAP) to study the issues faced with
previous major efforts and avoid repetition of any problems from those predecessors, the 707, 727,
737 and 747 programs then it became The 767 Program. Its goal was to review the company’s
experiences with each of its major programs. This process, called project homework, took three years
and produced a long list of lessons learned, as well as a reasonable idea of the costs of developing the
next generation airplane. In 1981, three companies, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Airbus,
dominated the market being able to manage this grand project cost. Launching a new plane was a
challenging task as the manufacturing required $1.5-2 billion, often placing a company's net worth on
the line. But, any successful product launch was expected to lead to heavy profits within the market
segment for at least 15 to 20 years.
For several years, Boeing had lobbied the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for
permission to build wide-bodied aircraft with two-person cockpits. Permission was granted late and
by the time 30 of those planes were already in various stages of production. Boeing had to make
decision quickly what was the best way to proceed. This case study deals with the dilemma faced by
Dean Thornton, Vice President-General Manager of the Boeing 767 program. Thornton knew that the
planes need to be converted to models with two-person cockpits. The decision had to be made quickly
as the delivery dates were fast approaching, and these were not small changes. As we have learned
from the case, I suppose two solutions were available for Thornton to convert the models with two-
person cockpits. First, in-line option, Dean Thornton should authorize the first 30 units of Boeing 767
to be completed Assemble and Modifying 3 person- Cockpit to 2 Person without removing them from
the flow of production, requiring unique design solutions for each airframe and slower production
learning curves. Second, off-line option, he should complete the 30 planes as three-person cockpits
maintaining the learning curve rates, then establish a large separate area to retrofit each with two-
person cockpits. In conclude, decision making is really important like in the case of Thornton, the
result of decision could lead to grow or fall of the company. However, for my suggestion Thornton
should authorize the First 30 units of Boeing 767 to be completed Assemble and Modifying 3 person-
Cockpit to 2 Person Cockpit Because the airplane systems would be functionally tested during the
final assembly process as originally planned, his team has strong commitment to do so, may reduce
quality issue for both technical, and component issue, and keep delivery schedule to customer on time.