This pressure necessitated Boeing to come up with a raft of measures that were geared towards reducing the lead time.After exploring the new supply chain management system that was used in the manufacture of the 787 Dreamliner, the report has found the supply chain management system effective in the long run. Effective communication of demand and supply enables timely action by the company leaving customers satisfied.The rationale for the differences in strategy to supply chain shown in table 1 above can be traced to the following factors.The collaboration hub is a crucial step towards exception-based management of the end to end process across all Boeing partners and partner tiers as well.Under the 787 dreamliner supplier system, the tier 1 strategic partners are responsible for the manufacture and delivery of complete parts and subsystems to Boeing allowing Boeing to only assemble the complete sections at its assembling plant in Everett, Washington (figure 3).Boeing made a decision to manufacture its 787 Dreamliner using an unconventional supply chain to the aircraft manufacturing industry. This unconventional supply chain has a vision of cutting on the manufacturing and assembling costs while spreading the financial risk involved in the development of the aircraft to its suppliers who were turned to be strategic partners (Tang & Zimmerman, 2009).As Boeing embarked in outsourcing most of its functions, its workers raise concerns about their job security leading to a strike by more than 25000 workers in September, 2008. The system, collaboration hub, powered by E2open software was developed to monitor various activities carried out by sub-contractors, increase the visibility in all its tiers, get real time control over demand and supply as well as other forward or reverse processes in a bid to achieve effective collaboration between all its establishments, tiers and strategic partners located in different parts of the world.The new risk-sharing contract between Boeing and its strategic partners’ states that none of the strategic partners can receive payments until the complete aircraft is commissioned for flight and is delivered and accepted by the customer. Some strategic partners are slower than other and the arrangement seems to be punitive to the quick ones as they have to wait for others. They are responsible for purchasing more than 1.6 billion components and assemblies each year—from airplane fuselage and body sections to state-of-the-art and emerging technologies. Workers in tier1 fed wrong and incorrect information into the system leading to delays from tier 1 strategic partners that leading to massive delays with all other sections in the supply chain as well as the distribution channel.The design of the 787 supply chain depends on the just-in-time deliveries by Boeing’s tier 1 strategic partner. However, by 2012 Boeing recorded reduction in water use by 2% (Appendix 4). The Boeing Co. is making a change to its supply chain.
Their work helps us fully understand how supplier products and services can directly benefit Boeing and our customers. It has become such a mess, such a supply chain disaster, that it almost makes you think Boeing execs made Dreamliner decisions Boeing understood the competitive advantages of supply chain management that it is becoming the distinguishing competitive factor in manufacturing industries.