Amid all the fine financial news Boeing can tout - a record order backlog, robust profit margins, a higher profit outlook - one of the airplane maker’s dreariest performers continues to be its highest-tech, most fuel-efficient product: the 787 Dreamliner.
Project-based operations that improved on-time and on-budget performance by 10 percent or more were nine times as likely to also improve dramatically on key financial metrics such as net profit margin and cost of compliance. Nearly every project-based manufacturer feels it is important for their company to improve on end-to-end project management, but less than half of the companies in project manufacturing, aerospace and defense (A&D) and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sectors with project-based operations make wide use of any recognized category of commercial software system. This includes limited use of enterprise resources planning and quality management (QMS) systems.
Boeing and its investors likely couldn't be happier with the first quarter 2014 earnings report: revenue rose 8 percent over the year-ago quarter, operating margins widened, and 2014 guidance got boost. The U.S. aerospace company ramped up deliveries for its 787 and 737 models to keep pace with demand, which in turn increased cash flow beyond analyst expectations. And a $374bn backlog of more than 5,100 aircraft guarantees that even if Boeing stopped booking new orders today it would take nearly a decade to deliver all the planes on order. But things don't appear quite so rosy in Boeing's Defense, Space & Security division.