product and process innovation that will differentiate us—and help Boeing and our suppliers win new orders. In the long term, everyone benefits from reducing waste and inefficiency. And the link between productivity and future growth has never been clearer. Is it working? We’re off to a good start, but we need to do more to meet the goals we’ve set. Partnering for Success has contributed to winning competitions; it has generated leaner operations and several billion dollars in cost reductions and long-term committed savings. Many suppliers are increasing their production-system efficiencies with aggressive Lean+ approaches. Some have asked us for help, while others have suggested ways that we can do things differently to help make them more efficient. Things we’re working on with suppliers include value engineering, which involves adjusting requirements or redesigning parts so they can be produced more efficiently and with greater first-time quality; real repurposing of designs, hardware and software, across product lines and across our commercial and defense sectors where appropriate; and aggregated purchasing of common parts and materials. What about those who don’t see value in Partnering for Success? Is there really a “no-fly list” of suppliers who won’t get further business from us? This is all about choices. Our suppliers can choose whether or not to work with us in providing our customers greater value at increasingly lower costs. Whenever possible, we’re providing more opportunities to those who choose to partner with us. These suppliers are seeing, and will continue to see, more foremost, benefits our customers. It helps us earn their trust and their repeat business, and the importance of their missions demands our absolute best. We’re not asking suppliers to do anything that we’re not willing to do, or haven’t already done ourselves. We’ve been intensely focused on delivering greater value to customers through Lean+, Development Program Excellence, safety (through “Go for Zero”) and other initiatives. We’ve offered to share our best practices with our supply-chain partners to improve their productivity, too. So it’s not just about near-term cost savings? Correct. This benefits both Boeing and our supplier-partners. The more efficient we all are, the more we can invest our productivity gains to self-fund the Frontiers March 2014 07 “We want to create the strongest, most capable and efficient supply chain in the industry.” —Dennis Muilenburg Boeing vice chairman, president and chief operating officer chances to share in our tremendous growth potential—a good chunk of which is already booked in our record $441 billion backlog. And yes, we do consider other options—including bringing work in-house, building our own vertical capabilities, or re-competing work packages—when dealing with suppliers who choose not to participate. We believe that’s the right thing to do for our customers and the competitiveness of our entire supply chain. Is this something that Supplier Management is responsible for or can I help, too? Delivering on our broader affordability and first-time quality goals depends on contributions from every employee. As for Partnering for Success, the respon-sibility extends well beyond Supplier Management. We’re working hard to create the mindset that Partnering for Success is everyone’s job. So if your job touches suppliers in any way, you can help. In every part of Boeing, you can pursue first-time quality in every work product; you can eliminate traveled work that drives instability in our operations and those of our suppliers. Whatever your business or function, you might be able to help develop—and, even more likely, support—new procurement strategies with Supplier Management and our Shared Services Group. You can take actions that drive excel-lence and the utmost integrity in all that we do. Just engage with a One Boeing headset to bring value to customers. We really need everyone to redouble their efforts, because our competitiveness is directly linked to productivity, which fuels our innovation and drives our ability to win in the global marketplace. Our customers expect this of us, our Boeing values demand it, and our future depends on it. n
Frontiers March 2014 Issue
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