LEADERSHIP MESSAGE BOEING FRONTIERS / JULY 2013 7 A winning formula All Boeing employees play a powerful role in helping the company succeed Kevin Schemm Vice president and chief financial officer, Boeing Commercial Airplanes More than 170,000 employees work for Boeing and every one of us can help make our airplanes and our services more innovative and competitive. We all play a role in applying Boeing’s winning formula for leading in the marketplace: Providing the right products for the right price. Getting that formula right helps us win more business, drive profitability and reinvest in new products and services that will allow us to build a bigger, better, stronger Boeing and benefit all of our stakeholders. In the competitive world we live in, with our customers expecting “more for less,” it is critical that we continue to execute and focus on productivity and profitability. Being more efficient in what we do, wherever it happens, reduces overall costs and makes Boeing’s products and services more affordable, which helps our sales. Across Boeing, teams are implementing ways to support affordability efforts, including our companywide Partnering for Success focus, which is enabling us to work as “One Boeing” with our top supplier-partners to bring down the costs of parts and components by improving quality and flow across the supply chain. Finance is at the center of this effort. For example, Finance analysts charted the costs of the main landing gear on a 777 and compared them with the cost of a landing gear for the F/A-18 jet fighter and the equivalent part on the C-17 military airlifter. While these aircraft are vastly different, the team was able to strip the part down to its essential components to create a model that allowed for equal comparisons. This type of analysis and knowledge allows us to better support the business and provide critical information for our business leaders to make informed, educated decisions and ultimately drive value for The Boeing Company. Meanwhile, to help engineers reduce the cost of development programs and existing models, Finance estimators are drilling down into each commercial airplane type and model to separate out what Boeing pays for every part or assembly. The data will provide a road map for engineers, showing them which section of the airplane to focus on first when trying to improve the cost of the design. This information also can help engineers decide which material or part to use on a future airplane. Once the analysis is completed, it will be made available to teams in Engineering and Supply Chain Management & Operations for use in making design and purchase decisions. These are just some of the actions that will help us deliver the right products for the right price. That’s the winning formula that each and every one of us can focus on to grow our business. And by doing so, we secure Boeing’s leadership position in the aerospace industry for many years to come. n PHOTO: Katie lomax/boeing
Frontiers July 2013 Issue
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