Boeing’s ‘Dreamliner’ – an Operations Nightmare

1 a) Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defence, space and security systems. Boeing’s products and services include commercial and military aircraft. It also includes satellites, weapons electronic and defence systems.

1 b) There are many issues Boeing had faced in introducing new technology to its ‘Dreamliner’ plane. Firstly, they had ditched the more traditional hydraulic systems for the landing gear and had gone for electric systems instead, and because of this, Boeing had left themselves working with something less familiar than the traditional landing gear to work with, therefore increasing the risks of the 787 plane and its landing. Although the technological leap was always likely to cause teething issues, it worsened when they decided to bring a high percentage of their plane parts from outside contractors. Again, by introducing new, foreign technology to its Dreamliner plane, Boeing had faced more issues than they would have because not only did it take longer for them to get the parts (delayed by 3 years) but it had also led to the parts not even fitting together properly, which causes even more delay and money to ‘fix’ the parts in order for them to somehow fit.

2 a) The use of sub-contracting may have been an unwise decision in the case of the Boeing Dreamliner because sub-contracting means employing a firm outside one’s company to do the work as part of a larger project. It is unwise of Boeing because introducing outside companies to work with them may have made it harder for them to build the Dreamliner because those outside companies may not be familiar with Boeing’s industry, or in this case the plane – with the parts not fitting together properly. Also by sub-contracting, it increases the delays in finishing the product being