An examination of Boeing's supply chain management practices within the context of the global aerospace industry

This thesis examines the supply chain management practices of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company within the context of the global aerospace industry. The methodology used for this study includes a study of emerging supply chain management concepts and practices in the aerospace industry based on a review of the open literature, research performed on aerospace supply chain management issues by MIT's Lean Aerospace Initiative, and selected interviews with aerospace industry experts. The results show that there are significant changes in supply chain management practices in the aerospace industry. These changes include restructuring and closer integration of supplier networks to achieve efficiency gains, delegating greater design and production responsibility to major suppliers through strategic supplier partnerships along with having key suppliers evolve greater system and subsystem integration capabilities, emphasizing a lifecycle view supply chain design and management to reduce lifecycle cost of products and systems, and building supply chain capabilities supporting maintenance and aftermarket logistics services as a major new strategic thrust to provide improved customer satisfaction and retain long-term customer loyalty. The thesis focuses on Boeing's supply chain management practices through a case study to explore these developments in a more concrete enterprise context.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Çizmeci, DaÄ lar

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kirkor Bozdogan.

• Engineering Systems Division.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33315

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33315