1. Do you think Boeing made changes to its assembly line to assist its lean manufacturing efforts?
2. How might the JIT approach at Boeing help its customers (i.e. airlines)?

The Boeing 737 jet is the world’s most popular and reliable commercial airliner. The company has manufactured over 8000 jets in the 737 family. In 2005, the 737-900 ER was launched, which can carry more passengers over a further range than any previous model. According to a press release from the time, Boeing adopted lean manufacturing techniques on this 737 model, the end result of which is one of the shortest assembly times of any commercial aircraft – just 11 days. Lean manufacturing is a production philosophy that treats the use of resources on anything other than value creation as wasteful, e.g. waiting time, transport delays, defects. At Boeing, the assembly time was cut in half between 1999 and 2005. A JIT approach is contained within the principles of lean manufacturing. The techniques were also applied to the manufacture of the 787-Dreamliner aircraft and to more recent models of the 737, such as the 737-MAX. In fact, Boeing plans to increase production of the  MAX during 2017, something surely assisted by lean manufacturing and JIT.