Boeing chose to design its supply c

Boeing chose to design its supply chain with 43 top-tier suppliers on three continents. Outsourcing so much responsibility requires a lot of managerial attention; you have to know what is going on in each factory at all times. As expected with something so complex, major glitches popped up like gremlins. The first Dreamliner to show up at Boeing’s factory was missing tens of thousands of parts. Supplier problems ranged from language barriers to problems caused by some contractors who outsourced major portions of their assigned work and then experienced problems with their suppliers. The first fuselage section, the big multipart cylindrical barrel that encompasses the passenger seating area, failed in company testing, causing Boeing to make more sections than planned and to reexamine quality and safety concerns. Software programs designed by a variety of manufacturers had trouble talking to one another and the overall weight of the airplane was too high, especially the carbon-fiber wing. These and many other glitches caused major delays in the promised deliveries of the first 787s. The in-service date for the first commercial 787 was October 26, 2011, more than three years behind schedule. As of May 2014, 147 of the planes have been built.Did the advantages of collaboration on such a large scale outweigh the loss of logistical and design control? The jury is still out on that question. The latest problem involved the design of the lithium ion batteries that supply power to the energy-hungry electrical systems, which caught fire in an auxiliary power unit of a Japan Airlines 787 on the ground at Boston’s Logan International Airport on January 7, 2013. The batteries have since been redesigned; however, Boeing’s customers are not happy with all of the delays. Nonetheless, Boeing has more than 1,031 orders for the Dreamliner.