Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has said that it intends to scrutinise its supply chain capacity and quality closer than ever before as it plans to increase production to record levels over the next quarter.
Boeing, which suffered severe delays during the production of its 787 Dreamliner because of a shortage of parts and suppliers falling behind schedule, said that it is confident that it will not experience these delays during the next production run.
The aircraft giant began asking its suppliers for more information last year and is now also looking at the vendors of its biggest partners to ensure necessary supply, according to BusinessWeek.
Chief executive officer Jim McNerney told analysts and investors in New York that “With the suppliers, it’s not what they’re doing today, it’s their capacity to do what you need them to do tomorrow, which we now have a far greater capacity to understand.”
John Byrne, who oversees purchasing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said at an industry conference in Seattle that the group are “being more proactive,”
Lead times between placing and receiving orders are starting to “creep out a little bit” for items that include treated metal parts, Byrne said. In some cases, suppliers can’t keep up, and the company has had to seek additional vendors, he said.
“Some of this stuff we’ve never looked at before,” he added.
Boeing’s production plan calls for 10 separate “rate breaks,” which is when the assembly line for a certain model boosts output, from 2011’s first quarter through the third quarter of 2014, Byrne said. The planemaker plans to push 737 production to 42 a month in two years, from 35 now, and is studying what it would take to reach 60.
Byrne said he would give Boeing and its supply chain a low grade of C- or D because of the effort and cost needed to raise output while keep quality high. A “lot more work” is needed, he said.
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