Product details

This case describes a major effort to design a new product using digital design technologies and a Design-Build Team approach. The case takes place in the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group during the early to mid 1990s, but also traces the history of the Boeing design process, going back to the 1950s. At the time of the case, in mid-1995, the company president has asked key managers to carefully assess lessons learned from the 777 design process and to determine the extent to which the new technologies and processes should be infused into the rest of the organisation. A surface analysis might lead students to think that the 777 design process was a total success, but a more careful review of the case and exhibits, combined with critical thinking and logic, will lead them to understand that the company could, and should, make changes before adopting the ''777 method'' company-wide. A central question in these discussions centres around the single performance metric, ''change errors and rework'' that appears to have driven the entire new design effort. Historical data and related articles, along with commentary from numerous company representatives, aid the student in evaluating case questions about the merits of digital design and design build teams, the use of performance metrics for new product development, and decisions regarding wider-scale implementation.