Regardless of all the evidence pointing to flaws in the system, changing a successful company is not easy, especially if one considers the cost and the additional time involved. For the 777, the additional time is estimated to be six months over the normal 48 months to develop a new airplane. CEO Shrontz, who takes responsibility for not modernizing Boeing more rapidly, says that "trying to change this company without a crisis wasn’t easy. We had 75 years of history, and we were very successful, there was a strong feeling of ‘Why Change?’". There was also an admitted attitude of arrogance prevalent at Boeing. Phil Condit pointed out the feeling at Boeing was that airplane building was unlike any other industry, and that what may have worked for the automotive industry would surely not apply to Boeing. He says: " One of the things we have done is say. ‘Airplanes are different,’ which is one of the neatest ways not to learn. You go stand on a Toyota production line and say ‘Wow, this is neat, but airplanes are different.’" This is a necessary thought process when one compares the number of defects per seat in a Toyota car versus a Boeing airplane, although there is a substantial difference in complexity between a mass-produced automobile and a commercial jet aircraft. Boeing has recently implemented a system to track defects across its entire line of aircraft and came out with a number of 52 defects per seat in 1993. Those 3.5 million defects range from dents or damaged carpets to misdrilled holes and interference problems. At the other end of the spectrum are Toyota’s numbers: 0.75 defects per car or 0.15 defects per seat. However, Boeing’s numbers are measured during the manufacturing process and all are caught and corrected before the airplanes go into service, while Toyota’s numbers are based on surveys of car owners after 90 days.
Getting a tremendously large bureaucratic system to move forward seems like an even more daunting task, especially while continuing to produce airplanes. As one executive noted, "it would be so much easier to shut down the whole company and make the change".
A crisis was arising in the form of Airbus Industries which was taking a larger share of new plane orders. Many of the innovations pointed out by Boeing, which made the 777 a unique aircraft, had already been implemented by Airbus. The Airbus fly-by-wire A-320 has been flying since 1985, and Airbus claims that the A-320 is 90% and that the A-330 & A-340 are 100% designed by computer. While the 777 was designed using 3-D solids technology, it is not clear what Airbus means by "100% designed by computer". Airlines were realizing that older planes were less costly to operate when the escalating cost of depreciation of new airplanes is taken into account. In addition, the dropping cost of jet fuel reduced the savings from newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft. Increased costs due to greater fuel consumption, higher maintenance, and larger flight crews were considered a relative bargain when compared to the cost of a new airplane.
The desire to avoid repetition of the same problems that the 747-400 program had in the late 1980’s with the 777 program is another reason for these changes. The cyclical airline industry was experiencing an unprecedented boom with a corresponding increase in airplane orders. The Boeing backlog of orders increased by 140% from 1984 to 1988, and Boeing was caught short of employees due to the layoff of 20,000 employees in the early 1980’s, having to scramble to meet delivery obligations. Further, many of the employees did not have the experience necessary to keep up with the overambitious production schedule, and delivery delays resulted. Condit admitted to trying to do too much too fast with too few seasoned workers. additional problems Boeing tried to eliminate with the new design/build process included quality control and subcontractor delivery schedules.
The design parameters that had been well understood and the goals that the designers continually struggled to achieve were no longer significant. For example; ever since the Wright Brothers first flight, more range was desirable. To double that first flight measured in feet was a major accomplishment, to fly non-stop across the Atlantic was a worthy milestone, but as technology improves and the ability to fly half-way around the world is attained, extending an aircraft’s range is suddenly meaningless. There has not been a substantial increase in flight speeds of commercial airliners, with the exception of the supersonic Concorde, since the original jet airliner, the Boeing 707. The design parameters are shifting from being performance based to being cost based. For example, on the 707, 50% of operating cost was fuel burn and 20% was cost of ownership, on the 777 those numbers are 18% and 62%, respectively.
Originally developed by Shadd Shokralla
