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HUMAN RESOURCES
DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Working Paper 01-Clardy-01
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Teams at Boeing: Military Aircraft Production at the St
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LOUIS PLANT
Alan Clardy
Towson University
Draft 3
October, 2001

Note: Much of this report is based on a series of articles written by Mr
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Numbers in citation refer to the date and title of
the article
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Stephenson for his gracious and generous support in supplying
information for this report
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The
company was created by William Boeing
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He soon developed a fascination with the
just emerging field of aviation, and began building seaplanes
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During the post War years,
demand for planes dropped, but Boeing was kept in business in part by military contracts, and in
part, by venturing into new markets, such as mail delivery
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A 1934 antitrust decision outlawed airpla ne manufacturers
from owning mail-carrying airplanes, and Boeing divested itself into the Boeing Airplane
Company, and what became United Airlines and United Technologies
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Boeing merged with North American and McDonnell Douglas in the 1990s
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The St
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In addition, the St
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There are about 15,200 employees at the St
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About
3,200 employees, mostly working on the shop floor, are members of the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW)
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Making Planes the Old-Fashioned Way
In its traditional format, the manufacture and assembly of aircraft, either commercial or
military, often followed the basic principles of mass production
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McDonnell Douglas used the same fundamental assembly line
method during the Vietnam war to build components for the F-4 Phantom
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Even with this basic production platform, though, there was still some variation in production
techniques
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With the advent of the
E/F versions of the F/A-18, a new so-called “low-rate expandable tooling” method was
implemented which kept the main body of the aircraft stationary and components were brought
to the body for assembly purposes
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According to Womack and Jones (1996), lean manufacturing is characterized by
five basic principles:
1
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This means that the customer’s “voice” should be
present at every stage of design, production, and follow-through
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The entire production flow or stream should be the basis for organizing and managing the
process; this requires, in part, that suppliers must be closely integrated with the process
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The production flow should be structured to eliminate waste by using a continuous flow of
small lots, by eliminating inventory buffers, and by using cross-trained teams in a work cell
structure
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Rather than a mass production based “push” process of continuous feed to the next work
station along the line, the process should be reversed to a “pull” or just-in-time process in which
upstream stations only receive the next work- in-process once they call for it
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)
5
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This is called “kaizen”
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Growing manufacturing competition from Europe
and Japan during this time further pressured producers to provide the best quality while also

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being the most responsive to customer requirements
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Over 100,000 employees were trained in a World Class
Competitiveness program in 1990
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The AIW program is similar to the more widely known GE Workout
and Accelerated Improvement Programs
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By 1998, these practices began transferring to other Boeing divisions and locations (“A historical
perspective”, 2001)
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Louis plan that coordinates and promotes lean
manufacturing operations both in the plant but, as importantly, among engineering and supplier
upstream contributors
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Sixty to 75% of what’s in an aircraft is
brought from suppliers and about 80% of the cost is designed in by engineering
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But the potential for bigger impacts
exists by working with those extrinsic to Boeing’s direct assembly operations
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Self- Directed Work Teams

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Beginning in the late 1980s, two developments were catapulting the use of teams into the
mainstream of organizational design in the United States
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First, there were the applied theories of self-directed work
teams
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Discussions on both follow
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In its new form, SDWTs essentially replace the traditional supervisor- led work group with
a workgroup that manages itself
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SDWTs, though, also represent something of a reversion to the early years
of industrialization and the use of internal contracting, when the work group (headed by an
independent contracting foreman) had local autonomy over what it did on the shop floor
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During the 1980’s,
when Japanese manufacturing practices were being touted, prominent attention was given to the
use of teams
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They are an integral part of the lean manufacturing design
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Control can have important implications in terms of such factors as job security, stress,
accountability, job satisfaction, and productivity, to name but a few
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The International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) has been actively involved in this movement of working with
employers to form innovative and mutually beneficial work structures
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To date,
partnerships have been formed with such firms as Harley Davidson, Alcoa and Gerber
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As such,
HPWOs require full management commitment
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shared decision- making about vital business functions
2
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continuous integration of leading edge technology
4
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shared technical and financial information
6
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acceptance of the union by management
8
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a jointly developed strategic business plan

Teams at the St
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Louis Boeing plant and produced
the formation of two basic team structures: Integrated Product Teams (IPT) and High
Performance Work Organizations (HPWO) (1)
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Focusing more on the front-end design of the various systems, these teams included a broad mix
of engineers, manufacturing personnel, suppliers and customer representatives
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The HPWOs were formed in the mid-1990s as a partnership agreement between Boeing
and the IAMAW
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By March, 2001, the St
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Together, the membership from these
209 teams total about 85 percent of the IAMAW workforce in St
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Boeing wants to
increase that number to 98 percent of the total St
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The use of teams does not mean that they operate independently or without oversight
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Consider the F/A-18 E/F, which has 35 HPWO teams
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There is a superintendent for each domain, and there may be several teams
working in each domain
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Thus, a superintendent with four teams of 10 people each would actually be overseeing 40
people with each team doing the same basic functions
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The 28 HPWO teams in the C17 program operate under a similar structure
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At the St
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”(5) Each team has a team leader
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The HPWO office in the St
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Training covers such topics as how to run productive meetings, managing problems and
conflicts, how to make business presentations, and so on
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[Note the number of people actually who have
received leader training is probably more – and growing – than the actual number of HPWO
team leader positions
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]
The teams are empowered to deal directly with management, suppliers and/or customers
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A HPWO team will meet weekly to review performance
charts and discuss other issues
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Teams
also make a number of process improvements in working quicker and better
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This training, different than the AIW training, is provided through an HPWO office in
St
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[Question: what is the training provided to the
workers? What does it cover?]

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Teams and the C-17 Globemaster III
The C-17 Globemaster III is a major workhorse for the U
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military in moving men and
materials
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Through its rear- loading ramp, the C-17 can carry 102 paratroopers and their equipment,
or three Bradley fighting vehicles, or one of the Army’s Abrams main battle tanks
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S
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Final assembly is completed at the Long Beach,
California plant
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Louis plant produce various components, including:
o Canted bulkheads (2)
o Cargo doors (3) (4)
o Cargo ramps (3) (4)
o The nose (3) (4)
o Longeron kits (6)
o Pylons (7)

As of 2001, there were 28 HPWO teams involved in various aspects of the C-17 program
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The
team also uses a Statistical Process Control process to keep real-time records of their
work- in-progress, recording defects as soon as they happen which in turn prompts
immediate corrective action
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This means that rather than waiting for quality

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inspectors to come and inspect the holes, work by the team can proceed without
interruption
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Savings in time, cost and duplication are
expected to be significant
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Based on their participation in workshop training programs, this team redesigned its
workstations for more efficiency and better results
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Further, when parts were
needed, the operator would have to walk the length of shop floor (which could be up to a
third of a mile away [1178/5280]) to obtain needed parts
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The workbenches were arranged into a cellular pattern that facilitates interaction and
mutual support; as a result, team members now help each other make the subassemblies
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2
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Further, clearly labeled bins and tool locations reduce the hassles of finding
misplaced equipment or materials
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One position was designated as the “water strider”
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This reduces travel time and accompanying lost production
time
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Based on process
improvements and other gains, this team was able to drive down production cycle time
and reduce total labor hours by about 50%
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(5)

o The C-17 longeron team worked with the Macon plant to eliminate the inventory
problems created by mixed and unmarked parts that had been arriving at the Macon
loading dock
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Now, parts are shipped in kits with bar codes and other labels that
make the sorting and storing job at Macon much easier
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S
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It comes in both a single-seat (E) and two-seat (F) model and is capable of a
large number of missions
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Louis plant
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The production
process is world-class, having earned several awards
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Both IPT’s and HPWO’s are included
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As of December 2000, there were 35
HPWOs involved in the design, production and testing of the Super Hornet (8)
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“…(T)eams function as businesses within a
business – dealing with the day-to-day issues of getting parts from suppliers, maintaining high
quality, meeting schedules, and keeping costs within budget
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For example, there is a common data base
on production operation metrics that is available to employees, customers and suppliers alike
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As in all forms of organization, a fundamental problem is how to make sure that
specialized units coordinate their actions with some larger plan and purpose
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To offset this potential problem, Boeing has adopted a
“values-based management” system
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Under this framework, team leaders have the authority and are expected
to monitor their performance and take appropriate action (9, 10)
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Louis plant, since the mid-1990’s, teams have become the dominant form
of production across virtually the entire shop floor and have been the backbone of production of
two major product lines
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Two main types of teams are found
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The High Performance Work Organizations are selfdirected work teams formed in partnership with the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers
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They select their own leadership, supervise
performance of team members, plan their work, and deal with upstream suppliers and
downstream “customers” on their own initiative
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Because of the commitment required, team-training
provided and management systems under which they operate, it is likely that these teams have
been able to get more done more quickly than might have been the case under more traditional
supervisor-led work group structures
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They do the work, they see problems first-hand,
and they see how solutions can be made
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Today, because the HPWO environment
encourages team members to look for improvements and suggest them, they are much
more likely to do so
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And good ideas that yield improvements in
cost and quality are rewarded – either financially or with some type of recognition award
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Boeing, Inc
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Seattle, WA
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boeing
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html
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Boeing, Inc
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Seattle, WA
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Boeing
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html
HPWO Partnership Key Components
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Upper Marlboro, Maryland
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iamaw
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asp?c=507
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(1996)
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New York: Simon and Schuster
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Citations from Stephenson
[question: most of these were probably from the Boeing News, but some came from speeches
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Is the Boeing News
only for St
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towson
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towson
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(3) C-17 Cell, 5 March 1999
(4) C-17 Nose Electrical Redesign, 18 May 1999
(5) C-17 Cargo Door Laydown Team, 18 January 2000
(6) C-17 Longeron Kits, 31 May 2000
(7) “cut your inventories…

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