The Massive Boeing 787 Delay and Its Painful Supply Chain Birth Pangs

1. The Massive Boeing 787 Delay and Its Painful Supply Chain Birth Pangs
In the mid-2000s, Boeing’s shiny new game-changing commercial airliner, the 787, was
sending waves of excitement throughout the transportation industry.
But the planes weren’t getting finished quickly enough.
Initially scheduled to enter service in May of 2008, disastrous SCM problems resulted in
a delay of over three years. It finally went into service in October of 2011, as Air
Transport World noted with exasperation.
So what went wrong with Boeing’s supply chain management?
To put it simply: Boeing badly wanted to do more than it could handle, and they failed to
assess the risks properly as they charged ahead. They attempted to rapidly change the
assembly process and the supply chain simultaneously — and too quickly — to
disastrous results.
Aerospace-Technology.com made these observations about the debacle:
Changing the supply chain and the assembly process all at once is probably two steps