LEADERSHIP MESSAGE John Tracy Chief technology officer, Boeing Senior vice president, Engineering, Operations & Technology ENGINEERING Ensuring Boeing’s future requires sharp focus on engineering excellence 06 Frontiers October 2014 of those cases, we haven’t met our own standards on in-house engineering quality in a number of instances, including the side-of-body issue on the 787 and the recent challenges on the KC-46. It’s important that we’re honest with ourselves on this subject, that we own our mistakes, and that we prevent them from happening in the future. With so much work to do, why are we seeing employment reductions in some areas and why are we distributing work in different places? The business environment for BDS is as challenging as at any time since the end of the Cold War. That’s what is driving the layoffs at BDS and in areas of Engineering, Operations & Technology that directly support BDS programs. But unlike prior downturns, increasing international defense work and a growing commercial airplane business has helped mitigate some of the layoffs. Over the past two and a half years, more than 700 BDS employees and about 300 EO&T employees, all of whom were susceptible to layoffs, were absorbed by growing needs at Commercial Airplanes. Also, because of the downturn in In this Q&A with Frontiers, John Tracy discusses the future of engineering and technology at Boeing. How would you assess the state of innovation at Boeing today? Innovation at Boeing is alive and well. We have more product and technology development underway today than at any time in nearly a half-century. At Commercial Airplanes, we’re developing the 787-10, the 777-8X and -9X, and the 737 MAX 7, 8, 9 and 200—all of which embody huge advances in efficiency and value for our customers. In Defense, Space & Security, we’re developing derivative aircraft, such as the KC-46A tanker, the AH-6i, the Saudi F-15, and new platforms like the Long Range Strike bomber program, Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike, Phantom Eye, Phantom Swift, and the Phoenix small satellite. And the CST-100, or Crew Space Transportation, win joins with the Space Launch System to put us back in the lead in manned space exploration. From an advanced technology standpoint, we’re more strategic and focused than we’ve ever been. Our Enterprise Technology Strategy is making a big difference in our key domains. We see glimpses of that with exciting new ideas like the Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research, or SUGAR, airplane concept study, advanced biofuels, and the technologies we’re putting on the ecoDemonstrator. Do we have the engineering and technical workforce to see these efforts through successfully? Our engineering and technical capabilities across the enterprise are exceptional. I think they are the best in the world. This year Boeing was named the No. 1 innovator in aerospace and defense by the Patent Board for the eighth year in a row. And a recent national college survey showed that Boeing was considered the top employer for engineering students. Having said that, we’re not perfect and we can’t afford to be complacent. Our customer on both sides of the business are demanding more capability and technology, and lower costs—and they want to see these innovations in their hands sooner rather than later. And we’ve had our share of execution issues that cost us a lot of money and hurt our reputation and relationships with our customers. While we hear a lot about the role of suppliers in some
Frontiers October 2014 Issue
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