787 Dreamliner , the revolutionary in the history of passenger flights said Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer. Planned in 2007 and expected first delivery in May 2008, but, it almost took 2 years extra to roll out the first plane for testing. The design was really revolutionary, where they planned to use carbon fibre as a replacement for aluminium in the plane bosy design. It was also conveyed that, 787 dreamliner will use 20% less fuel, resulting in saving millions of dollars an year for the airliners.
But, Boeing outsourced almost 60% of the total manufacture process, which included the core business area of Boeing to its 50 strategic partners located all over the world. Everything was fine, until the Alcoa, a supplier, told that it could not meet the deadline of fasteners to Boeing. This resulted in a huge confusion, and Boeing planned to use temporary fasteners for testing and there was a complaint that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner's battery is over-heating, Thus after many issues the first model was rolled out three years late.
Thus a valuable lesson from this failure is "Too much outsourcing is always a risk" and "One fastener can stop your entire produciton"
Dont you think alternative suppliers could also be kept in line for outsourcing in this kind of situation when one supplier cannot deliver the order ?? Because boeing cannot manufacture all the components for its plane, they do have to source parts.
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