As an airplane manufacturer Boeing started its business in 1916. It was William Boeing and George Westervelt who bring this company in to existence. It was 1952 when Boeing launched its first short range jet plane with the name of Boeing 707. After that Boeing continued its journey and makes a number of joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions and many contracts with many Governments and suppliers and became one of the largest Aircraft Jetliner manufacturers in the world. As one of the largest exporter in USA Boeing has a wide range of products. Boeing manufactures and design commercial jetliners and military aircraft combined, rotor-craft, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, launch vehicles and advanced information and communication systems and also is one of the major service providers to NASA in operating Space Shuttle and International Space Station. Boeing is divided its operations into two business units (1) Boeing Commercial Airplanes (2) Boeing Defense, Space & Security. Today having almost 200,000 people employed in almost 70 countries Boeing is serving to its customers in more than 90 countries all over the world.
Boeing’s Competitiveness
Boeing’s innovative new product developments, its suppliers’ capability , it standards for quality to meet their customer need along with its human resource power is a complete package that make it different from its competitors in its industry. These strategies of Boeing to achieve competitive advantage differentiate it from its competitors and bring at the top of aerospace industry.
Product and Design for Competitiveness
Good products always provide competitive advantage to their firm. Good firms try to focus on only a few products instead of a very large product line and concentrate on those products only. One of the strategy managers adopt is to concentrate on established customized product family. This provides option for customers to choose the product they needed. Product design is defined as the configuration of elements, material and components that give a product its attributes of function, appearance, durability and safety. Product design is more significant than price alone for gaining competitive advantage of the firm and it also differentiate a firm to its competitors. Better product design than competitor is also one of the value adding activity that leads to a competitive advantage for that firm.
Boeing is also focusing in providing customize family product. Today main Boeing’s products are family of Boeing 737, 747, 767, and 777 along with Boeing Business Jet. Boeing is also focusing on new product development efforts for Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner and the 787-9 Dreamliner. Boeing also provides option for their customers for a particular category i.e. Boeing 747 include 747-400, 747-400 Domestic, 747-400 Combi, 747-400 Freighter, 747-400 ER, 747-400 ER Freighter with different engine capacity. Almost 12,000 commercial jetliners are in service around the world, which is about to 75% of the world fleet.
A general concept is evidenced among researchers that firm’s internal resources is an important factor that lead to a competitive advantage. According to resource based theories firms having capabilities of no substitute and difficult to copy in their internal resources like unique product or efficient process leads to a sustainable competitive advantage. Boeing’s new product 787 Dreamliner provides unique features for its customers. Wide range of facilities and technology with new engine design and airframe including super lightweight titanium graphite laminate, carbon fibber and epoxy and composites is provided in this new jet plane to meet current needs of their customers. 787 Dreamliner also contain innovative electronic monitoring system which increases the efficiency of plane to report maintenance requirements to ground base computer system. 210 — 250 passengers could travel with 787-8 Dreamliner on routes of 14,200 to 15,200 kilometers; while on 787-9 Dreamliner 250 — 290 passengers can travel on routes of 14,800 to 15,750 kilometers. Working with General Electronics and Rolls-Royce Boeing manufactured engines with fuel efficiency and friendly environment. 787 Dreamliner has fuel 20 percent less fuel consumption as compare to today’s similarly sized airplane and also having similar speeds to today’s fastest wide bodies, Mach 0.85 that will provide to enjoy more cargo revenue capacity.
So this new product development and wide range of product family provides their customers a variety of options and fulfill the customer’s need that lead to competitive advantage for Boeing.
TQM Practices
The ability to meet customer’s need is called the quality of that product. Firms can reduce cost through quality management practices and increase their sales and ultimately the firm’s profits. By attaining the utmost efficiency through cost reduction and improvement in customer satisfaction TQM practices leads to develop sustainable competitive advantage. Boeing follows the quality guidelines provided by international agencies.
Six Sigma Award and Continuous Improvement
Lean Six Sigma for services is a business improvement methodology that maximizes shareholder value by achieving the fastest rate of improvement in customer satisfaction, cost, quality, process speed, and invested capital. In October 2008 a Boeing team working on B-C17 project was awarded with Gold from the International Team Excellence Program for their efforts to implement the practices of Lean Six Sigma production. The Gold Award-winning team used data and tools to learn where improvement could be made to processes in the production of its Boeing C-17 aircraft. Key tools for project selection included: lean value-stream mapping, trend analysis of performance metrics, and brainstorming sessions with stakeholders. Boeing also follows continuous improvement model strategic looping action of PDCA (plan, do, check, act) for upgrading their quality standards.
As part of the continuous improvement cycle, Boeing has four initiatives designed to support customer, competitive analysis, corporate direction and Boeing operational goals, and strategies. These activities include the advanced quality system and a closed-loop corrective/preventive action system.
Boeing also uses information technologies in their operations like computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM) which leads to increase their quality. CAD makes easy and reduce the time for design stage and also increases the probability of success of design. Boeing also uses CAD and CAM to design and produce their aircraft, such as the B-777 (Making of the Boeing 777, n. d.). By recognizing the power and needs of information technology Boeing uses an e-tool called a capability maturity model which measures different facets of Six Sigma and customer quality satisfaction. These quality management practices lead Boeing toward a competitive advantage for Boeing.
Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management integrates the activities that procure material and services, transform them into intermediate goods and final products, and deliver them to customers. Firms can gain competitive advantage by using supply chain management practices to their operations and strategies.
In this time of globalization firms are trying to improve their performance and through outsourcing firms get a chance to look across their traditional boundaries that support innovation to get that performance. Having suppliers all over the world company has developed good relations with their suppliers. Boeing is relying on outsourcing strategy and a number of parts are provided by its suppliers. In making 787 Dremliners Boeing is working with more than 20 international allies. For Being as an innovative organization that brings new ideas with new features in their products to meet their customers’ need it is very difficult to manufacture all of its products on its own alone. As a big portion of Boeing’s products are outsourced, so it is very important to maintain the required quality and on time delivery for their productions. To cater this problem Boeing also leveraged their skilled and brilliant employees to their customer who train their suppliers about their customer’s needs and how to maintain quality of their supplies
HRM Practices
Having more than 158000 employees in 70 countries all over the world Boeing represents the most diverse personals. Biggest strength of Boeing is the employees more than 123,000 having college degrees which include 32,000 advanced degrees work force. Code of Basic Working Conditions and Human Rights is been plasticized in Boeing that lead Boeing to an attractive place to work. Boeing also believe to select and retain the best qualified people available without any kind of discrimination in regard of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, physical or mental disability, or veteran status not only in recruiting and hiring, but also in transfers, promotions and terminations, compensation and benefits.
These things are very vital and motivate the employees that ultimately increase the quality of that product. Continuously for previous five years, Boeing has been awarded by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation as a firm that provides non-discriminatory workplace and stood at the top rating of the Corporate Equality Index. Many other awards Boeing has won for HR practices which increases the motivation level of their employee.