Boeing 777 Case Study Introduction

Boeing has been building commercial airliners since 1927 with the first Boeing commercial jet airliner, the 707, introduced in 1955. Currently, Boeing jets dominate the commercial aircraft market and Boeing hopes to continue this domination with the latest addition to the Boeing family, the 777. This success is even more remarkable when one realizes that the Boeing "Design/Build" process had not changed greatly during the past three decades. The system was antiquated, cumbersome, and inefficient creating production delays, increased costs, and spawning a huge bureaucracy simply to handle the paperwork. Boeing was clearly motivated to bring this World War II era process into the 21st Century.

Airbus Industries’ increasingly larger share of the commercial airliner market was a major force instigating these changes. Airbus had the advantages of government subsidies to help defray the costs of implementing best design practices, as well as latecomer advantages. It learned from Boeing’s, as well as Lockheed’s and McDonnell Douglas’, mistakes and it did not have 40 years of bureaucratic momentum to overcome. Other motivating factors include the need for Boeing to increase the income from the commercial aircraft division to offset the loss of revenue due to cutbacks in government defense and aerospace contracts.

This multimedia case study documents the reasons behind the overhaul of the design/build process at Boeing, the changes themselves as well as the methodology used in accomplishing those changes. The information was collected from the general media including articles and public television documentaries about the 777. In addition, much of the information was provided by the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company in the form of written documentation as well as video recordings. The main effort of the author was in sorting through the information and providing a coherent and logical story that would inform as well as educate. Since the case study covers many diverse areas including technical, organizational, business practices, and marketing, it is useful as an educational tool in fields other than engineering as well.

This case study was initially developed during the second half of 1995. During its preparation, the author realized that there were many aspects of the process that were necessary to tell the complete story but could not be included due to time constraints. Therefore, Phase I of this case is an overall framework with selected sections developed in detail, including a text version, sample HTML version, guidelines for insertion of multimedia content and structure, and an instructor's guide. This represents the work described in this MS project report. The second phase of the project will be to enhance the multimedia aspects of the presentation. At that time, input from Boeing in the form of a review of the case study and additional information will be solicited and incorporated therein.

Originally developed by Shadd Shokralla