Boeing

The Boeing Company announced today that it has taken another step to reduce internal costs and increase efficiency by implementing simpler ways of configuring and producing commercial airplanes.

The latest phase to implement the new standardized business processes and system called Define and Control Airplane Configuration/Manufacturing Resource Management began March 1. This phase gave 8,000 people, primarily from Engineering, access to the new system and processes. "The system stabilized quickly and there have been few user-identified problems," said Garnet Hizzey, deputy director - DCAC/MRM.

A total of 38,000 Commercial Airplanes employees in eight states, Canada and Australia, have access to the updated processes and system. This implementation, the eighth of eleven phases, marks the beginning of a process to enter airplane part data into the new system. The system will eventually become the company's single source of data for airplanes.

"We are helping to position Boeing to remain competitive into the 21st century," said Jeff Peace, director - DCAC/MRM, "and provide more value to shareholders by contributing to improved return on sales and increased inventory turnover." The company is already benefiting from earlier implementations at its parts manufacturing plants where managers are reporting increased inventory turn rates and reduced costs.

Boeing integrated four commercial software programs to replace more than 450 computing systems. The integrated system will eventually provide an end-to-end flow of accurate data and information from customer order through product delivery. The software programs are from Baan Company, CIMLINC, SDRC/Metaphase, and Trilogy. They are linked by IONA Technologies. Supporting hardware and databases are supplied by Hewlett-Packard Company, Oracle and Sequent Computer Systems.