Transforming commercial aerospace supply chain management practices by utilizing Toyota production system principles, practices, and methodologies

This thesis examines The Toyota Motor Corporation's core precepts, management principles, supply chain architecture, product development methods, leveraged practice of supplier partnerships and procurement practices, all of which are integral elements associated with the Toyota Production System, and assesses the scalability these elements for application in the commercial aerospace industry.The methodology used in this study includes an examination of basic concepts and practices that Toyota employs throughout its extended enterprise and which are being widely adopted throughout the automotive industry as well as other industries worldwide, based on a review of the open literature. The research also draws upon the author's first-hand exposure to Toyota's production system through field research involving benchmarking site-visits to Toyota plants, and makes use of extensive interviews conducted with both automotive and aerospace industry experts.The research reported in this thesis reveals that Toyota's Production System, as a mutually reinforcing set of principles, methods and practices, are indeed scalable to the aerospace industry and that one of the two commercial aerospace behemoths, Boeing and Airbus, has an opportunity to leverage them in order to obtain a clear and sustainable competitive advantage in the industry. This is possible, however, with an important caveat: the end-to-end enterprise transformation process would need to be based on adopting a long-term approach to renovating the current system, working closely with the supply chain partners, owning the change process, and holding steady over the longer-haul.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Patneaude, Steven M

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kirkor Bozdogan.

• System Design and Management Program.

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/1721.1/43112

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/43112