Boeing

Dave Swain, Boeing senior vice president of engineering & technology and president of Phantom Works, has announced he will transfer the presidency of Phantom Works in July to George Muellner, the advanced R&D unit's vice president - general manager.

"The time is right for George, who has helped me lead Phantom Works since 1999, to become the organization's single leader," Swain said. "It will help streamline reporting relationships within the organization and allow me more time to focus on my duties as Boeing chief technology officer."

Phantom Works is a virtual organization with about 4,000 employees spread across the company and supporting all the business units. Its mission is to be a catalyst of innovation for the enterprise, providing breakthroughs in technology that significantly reduce the cycle time and cost of Boeing's products and services while improving their quality and performance.

"Within the new architecture of the company, Phantom Works and the process councils will play an even more important role in helping Boeing operate efficiently and effectively as an integrated company, creating greater value for our customers and investors," said Phil Condit, Boeing chairman and chief executive officer.

As Phantom Works' new president, starting July 2, Muellner's responsibilities will expand from supporting primarily the defense and space business units of Boeing to supporting all the business units, including Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group, Connexion^sm by Boeing and Air Traffic Management. He will report to Swain as CTO and conduct operations from Seal Beach, Calif.

"This change will have minimal impact on our employees and virtually no impact on the way we operate," said Muellner. "If anything, it will allow us to be even more agile and responsive in supporting the business units and spreading best practices and technologies across the enterprise." To further streamline operations, three non-R&D-focused functions will be drawn from the current Phantom Works organization to also report to Swain as CTO. The three functions are:

• Boeing Ventures - focused on giving employees, through the Chairman's Innovation Initiative, an opportunity to develop innovative ideas into potential new businesses.
• Intellectual Property Business - focused on generating more value from company patents and technologies and on acquiring more patents for the company.
• External Technical Relations - focused on integrating Boeing's university, government and industry technical affiliations to capture greater value from them.

Swain, who will be moving to Boeing's new world headquarters, will also continue to chair the Boeing Engineering Process Council, composed of the chief engineers of the business units and focused on such strategic issues as cultivating top engineering talent and spreading best tools, processes and practices across the enterprise.

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