CASE STUDY : Boeing
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The Boeing Company, the world's largest manufacturer of commercial aircraft, can point to more than four and one-half million reasons for moving to open systems. That is the number of parts in the US company's new 777 airplane, a complex engineering project owing much of its success to Boeing's move to open systems. |
According to John Warner, president of Boeing’s Information and Support Services division, "How we would have been able to produce the 777 airplane economically and with the quality that we have without open systems is beyond my imagination."
Battling the Information Boundaries
Boeing’s migration to open systems began a decade ago. The cost of computing companywide was doubling every two years. But that cost wasn’t driven by increased functionality or increased capabilities. It was the lack of an open systems-based infrastructure. Functions were isolated and pockets of computing existed throughout the company. "Engineering would put a design together, for example," recalls Warner, "and then they would throw the design over the fence to the people who would plan the manufacturing process. These information boundaries were very inefficient."
Little was being done to discourage the creation of these boundaries. Boeing’s computing systems were in a state described by Warner as user anarchy: Individual groups were making their own decisions about computing needs without regard to the need for connecting all users, applications, and different business processes together, resulting in a nearly endless variety of systems and software. Older legacy systems with closed environments were posing similar challenges to communication and information flow among groups and departments.
Walls Come Tumbling Down
Boeing’s future depended on connecting people and systems. "The move to open systems was a straightforward business case,"says Warner. "W needed to put disparate systems together so that we could do projects like the 777 airplane, and we needed to make sure we could get the most value for our investment in computing systems."
Boeing developed a computing standard that defined the Boeing open systems direction for heterogeneous computing environments. A statement of direction was distributed that included all aspects of providing a computing environment to support the business process of The Boeing Company.
The scope of the standard was company-wide. All operating divisions incorporated the open system philosophy and developed vision statements that included elements unique to their products and customers. The specifications are now used for all requests for equipment throughout Boeing.
Specific open systems that work well for Boeing include Motif, Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), TCP/IP, X.400, and X.500.
In the past decade, the airplane manufacturing industry has changed and open systems has allowed the company to change with it. Boeing’s business has become truly global with international sales exceeding domestic sales. Information must be easily exchanged not only between internal groups and locations in the United States, but with customers and suppliers located around the world.
Open systems has removed many of the walls that added cost and slowed communication. The 777 project became a real proving ground for open systems. Boeing’s computing environment met the challenge, allowing unprecedented cooperation and communication between myriad teams of engineers, manufacturing planners, tool designers, suppliers, and others.
Open systems has helped streamline a number of processes. Once, maintenance manuals were laboriously produced, printed, and shipped to customers. Today, Boeing can provide maintenance information quickly and efficiently to customers electronically, eliminating the time and expense of manually producing and distributing mountains of paper.
The training and support functions within Boeing are sporting a more streamlined look as well. A plethora of proprietary systems and software requires more training and support than the more heterogeneous, open environment. The open systems environment has reduced duplication in these activities for both end-users and support personnel, leading to significant cost savings without reduced levels of support and training.
Maintaining the Vision
Boeing’s move to open systems has not always proceeded in a smooth and steady fashion. Even today, there is a strong desire by end-users to have products tailored specifically to their individual needs, favoring closed rather than open environments. Consequently, the compromises that are necessary, and in the best interests of the enterprise, are sometimes difficult for those end-users to make.
Hardware and software suppliers, too, have not always embraced open systems with the same enthusiasm and commitment shown by Boeing. "When the people who build the equipment and write the operating systems and the applications don’t comply with open standards, it makes it more difficult for us," says Warner. "We’ve gone so far as to declare to suppliers that open systems are our direction. If that’s not what you are, if that’s not what your product is, then we’re not interested."
Looking Ahead to an Open Future
Boeing set out on the path to open systems to tie business processes together and to control costs. In the process, the company has become more competitive. The move to an open systems-based infrastructure is an ongoing process at Boeing. The transition from legacy systems to a new, distributed environment will continue as budgets allow, and open systems will play a major role in the procurement process. Boeing has not set specific goals or timetables, however, for achieving an open computing environment. Instead, it establishes goals based on capabilities and the related cost to provide those capabilities.
"I’d like to see us move faster into open systems," says Warner. "If I could instantly transform our computing environment, I would have every system, every application, and every network protocol completely compatible and interoperable. Then every user would have access to exactly the tool they needed."
