ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses some of the self-inflicted wounds that have been evident at Boeing over the last decade. After 1993, the US aerospace industry pursued rapid and far-reaching consolidation and rationalization strategies to overcome the twin problems of global economic recession and post-Cold War defense budget reductions. In 1996, the announcement of the impending merger of Boeing, an aerospace giant which already dominated the commercial sector and McDonnell Douglas sharply raised the profile of military aerospace activities within the Boeing organization. The most clear cut and costly managerial problems at Boeing in the last decade were evident in a collapse of orderly and efficient production and manufacturing at the Renton and Everett plants in 1997/1998. In the mid-1990s Boeing were introducing a new form of production and manufacturing control to ensure that the configuration of aircraft offered to customers could actually be built in the company's factories at a sensible cost.
