CASE 1: THE BOEING COMPANY

The Boeing Company, a major U.S. aerospace company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, is the largest manufacturer of airplanes in the world. Over time, Boeing has developed three visions. The third is meant to carry them into the year 2010.

Vision1: The Right Part in the Right Place at the Right Time

In the late 1960s, business was good at Boeing, but the company had a severe parts shortage that was hindering production. If a part was unavailable when needed, a tag called a traveler was affixed to the aircraft in place of the missing part. At that time, the company had 2,500 5,000 travelers per month attached to planes under construction.

To correct this situation, they created this vision: the right part in the right place at the right time. Over a number of years, Boeing installed 15 major information systems as well as dozens of smaller ones to implement this vision. The parts shortage problem used to be greatest when a new aircraft was being introduced. For example, when the 737 was rolled out, the number of travelers jumped to more than 8,000 a month, but later leveled out at fewer than 100 a month. By the time the 757 and 767 models were introduced, Boeing experienced barely noticeable increases in parts shortages.

Information systems helped them solve the parts shortage problem and implemented their vision. In doing so, however, Boeing created islands of automation; systems had trouble passing information back and forth to one another. Meanwhile the companys marketplaces changed, so they needed a new vision.

Addressing the Changing Marketplace

Deregulation led the commercial airlines to expand their hub-and-spoke operations, making shorter flights and smaller planes more the norm. Fluctuating fuel prices made fuel economy a major concern in aircraft design. Boeing also faced more intense competition from foreign as well as domestic aircraft companies. They believed their competitiveness in the commercial airplane market depended on their use of information systems in there ways:

1. To increase their responsiveness to the market. Systems would help them design to cost meaning that planes would be designed with the aircraft purchasers operational costs in mind. Information systems would also help Boeing keep aircraft delivery schedulers flexible, so they could deliver products earlier than competitors. They also believed information systems would help them tailor an existing aircraft for a customer without having to completely redesign it.

2. To make after-sale, support more efficient. With IT, they would be able to create airplane documentation based on original design data. They would be better able to manage spare parts inventories worldwide. And they could use artificial intelligence in embedded diagnostics systems to do troubleshooting during maintenance.

3. To help them streamline their design-and-build process. Their vision was based on this third use of IT.

Vision 2: An Enhanced Information Stream

Boeings vision was to create an enhanced information stream, because building and supporting an aircraft is really an information process. An enhanced information stream means that every step in designing and building an aircraft uses, adds to, and enhances a continuing stream of information.

First, a product is defined using a computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) system. Then, each succeeding step in the design, build, and support process uses that digital information, adds to it, and enhances it. The various islands of automation feed into one seamless information pipeline. Even after-sale support information is based on this enhanced digital description of a product.

This vision required a number of significant changes in the company. One was organizational. Boeing had to break down traditional organization barriers because the islands of automation were based on organizational structure. If information was to be used better, it had to cross organizational lines. One way Boeing restructured itself was to establish design/build teams composed of people from engineering and manufacturing as well as other disciplines.

Boeing also streamlined its design and manufacturing processes before they were automated, rather than automate the traditional ways of doing business. Finally, the company uses computers for as many jobs as possible, such as tracking engineering changes.

Vision 3: A Strategic Business Process Architecture

To develop a vision for both the companys business processes and information systems to the year 2010, Boeing reassessed their position and undertook a long-range study. The team found that the Boeing had often put the cart before the horse, in that IS plans drove business plans. The company had a clear vision for IT but none for business processes. The study therefore defines the world-class production processes the commercial airplane group and the defense and space group needed to succeed in 2010, as well as the computing infrastructure to support those processes.

The study began with Boeing defining their existing business process architecture, to understand how they conduct business and compare it to how they want to conduct business in 2010. The 2010 strategic business process architecture provides the basis for their IT architecture, as shown in Figure. To define this business, vision, Boeing asked the following fundamental questions: What business processes should we use? What information do we need to accomplish these processes? How are the processes and information related? How is the data managed? Which hardware, software, and networks are required?Case Questions:1. What is the major focus of the case?2. Has the focus been different at different times? Yes/No? Justify why?3. List out the key points highlighted in the case.

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