Case Study Background $$ Boeing $787$ Founded in $1916,$ at the Puget Sound location in Washington State USA, Boeing is the largest aircraft company in the world, manufacturing commercial aircrafts, military aircrafts, satellites, weapons and electronic defence systems. It has a history of being the best aircraft company in leadership and innovation to design leading aircraft designs. The company uses advanced technology, engineering skills and innovative leadership to design and develop its products. As a result, it is the best in the USA and worldwide, serving many other nations with commercial and military aircraft. To remain innovative and competitive, in $1990$s Boeing started considering a replacement of the Boeing $767,$ due to slow rate of sales. By $16$th December $2003,$ Boeing announce that it was going to assemble the $787$ jet in its factory located at Everett Washington$[1].$ In building this plane, the company focused on reducing the time line from $6$ years to $4$ years. Instead of contracting the plane from scratch, it was going to outsource parts and issue sub$-$contracts to other companies in other nations.

The process of production requires raw materials and labor, which take time to procure and manage for the companies to come up with the right products. For the Boeing company to produce the $787$ parts in the USA, it would have incurred high costs in procurements and a lot of management logistics$.$ To cut down these costs, outsourcing was a nice way out that provided the company with the ability to enjoy the availability of skilled labor and raw materials in the outsourcing companies. When companies need to complete projects within limited time and meet specific quality, hiring and managing employees to produce might be expensive and not produce the right quality. Outsourcing would enable the company to benefit the available of experience from other countries. Through outsourcing from firm that were known to be the best producers of aircraft parts, Boeing was going to benefit from their expertise from wherever they were, without having to bring them to USA to work in Boeing company. In this case, Boeing outsourced the rear fuselage from Vought Aircraft Industries, the middle fuselage from the Italian Alenia Aeronautical, the wings were outsourced from Fiji, Mitsubishi and Kawasaki in Japan and the nose was outsourced to the Toronto based Onex Corporation. In this case, Boeing would have spent a lot of money and time hiring people and managing them to produce these pars in USA. However, with outsourcing, the parts would be made by the best producers and according to the company$$s specifications. Other outsourced companies were; Global Aeronautica, Kawasaki heavy Industries, Aero Systems Wichita Japan, Korea Air, HCL enterprise and Saab AB among others. By outsourcing to other nations, Boeing was going to create a relationship and a market for the jet in other nations. Boeing$$s outsourcing was also going to be beneficial in assisting the company to reduce the time used to manufacture the planes$[2].$ Production time is an essential timeline for different company products as most of them are normally booked to be in the market. Earlier planes had been manufactured within a period of $6$ years and the decision of to outsource $70\%$ of the contents for the production of Boeing $787$ was going to help in reduction of time from the normal $6$ years to $4$ years. The company was also to cut down costs, and enjoy the availability of skilled labor and raw materials from other nations$[3].$ This was the largest form of outsourcing that the company had done as earlier; it had outsourced $50\%$ of Boeing $777,30\%$ of $767$ and $5\%$ of $707.$ The planed seemed to work well up to the year $2007$ and the Boing marketing team had the $787$ orders booked for more than $770$ aircraft. In the history of commercial aviation, this was going to be the most successful aircraft launch. However, the company noted major problems in the supply chain that were negatively affecting the project, resulting in delays and poor

quality work. The major challenges were tired around supply chain management and threatened to collapse the whole Boeing $787$ project. Major supply challenges suffered by Boeing Communication failure Communication is the basis of any business operations, and without good communication, business operations can fail. In the supply chain, communication is necessary for the companies to understand the requirements and to meet the demands of the customers. The larger and complex the supply chain, the harder it becomes for the communication among the parties to be coordinated. This poses a risk of miscommunication that can result in poor delivery times and quality. Boeing $787$ construction project faced communication failure problem due to the number of companies and countries that the company outsourced. Communication is an important element for any supply chain to be successful. In this case, Boeing was outsourcing from different companies located in diff