Issue 288: Dream Machine?

One 787 delivery down, 820 to go

“The bigger the innovation the more you can tolerate failure. If we had these kinds of execution problems with a product that wasn’t this innovative, we’d be in real trouble.”

Boeing chairman and CEO Jim McNerney’s comments on the 787 execution at an IBM Think Tank Forum in New York just ahead of the delivery of the first 787 to All Nippon Airways approximately 40 months late are sobering, particularly considering that the delivery of the last game-changing aircraft Boeing delivered – the 747-100 – was just two months late, despite major engine problems.