Strength on strength

And in its 100 years Boeing certainly has a history of innovation. Boeing and its legacy companies like McDonnell Douglas and North American have been responsible for some of aviation’s most innovative products, from the Boeing 247 to the 707 and 747, the DC-3, F-4 Phantom, CH-47 Chinook, F-86 Sabre and Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, to today’s 787 and Super Hornet.

“If you think about every innovation that’s happened in the aerospace world over the first hundred years of aviation, Boeing’s been involved,” Muilenburg said.

It is a centenary of history to be celebrated. But what pointers do they offer to Boeing’s future? Certainly today’s Boeing is in strong health, particularly with its bulging order book for commercial airliners.

On the other hand its military business has contracted as mature programs wind up (Boeing marked completion of C-17 production not long after Muilenburg’s Australian visit, and at some point late this decade or early next, it seems Boeing will be out of the fast jet business unless it wins the USAF’s T-X jet trainer program).

Indeed it was in Boeing’s defence unit – today called Boeing Defense, Space & Security – where Muilenburg spent much of his three-decade Boeing career and made his name, rising to run what today is a US$31 billion business employing 50,000 people (and a role that would see him visit Australia on a number of occasions) before becoming chief operating officer.

One of Muilenburg’s successes leading BDS was increasing profit margins even as revenues fell in a time of declining defence spending. That is, he made the division more efficient.

And greater efficiency is likely to be an aim now that he is chief executive officer of the entire enterprise – the world’s biggest aerospace company. How does Boeing ramp up production to fulfil that massive backlog while improving efficiency? One key to that is the ‘One Boeing’ strategy, which is “about creating a culture where we can work seamlessly across our commercial, defence, and space sectors, and that means our ability to move and share talent, to develop our people, to build on our customer relationships”.

Breaking down internal barriers within Boeing might not sound exciting, but it will, says Muilenburg, help “create innovation that’s leading edge”.

But that innovation won’t just be in the areas where we think an aerospace company will innovate in – say, unmanned stealth fighters or flying wing carbon-fibre composite airliners – it will be in technology and process, things like “design and manufacturing technology, 3D printing, additive manufacturing, robotics [and] . . . data analytics information-based services. ” To do that, says Muilenburg, means leveraging the “bigness of Boeing”, what he calls “strength-on-strength”, with the aim of building “the innovation and agility edge that we know the market is going to demand in our second century”.

That second century will clearly look a lot different to Boeing’s first.

Strength on strength II We hope you enjoy this ‘Summer Reading’ issue of Australian Aviation for our January/February edition. It was a lot of fun – if also a lot of work! – pulling together a bigger magazine than normal with a wider variety of content than perhaps normal. Hopefully you’ll find it contains plenty of engaging reading for your summer break.

Scanning the page plan for this issue as I write this highlights not only the depth of content, but also the depth of talent that goes into producing every issue of Australian Aviation. And as another year ends as I write this – and another one begins as you read this – I think it’s timely to acknowledge that the content in Australian Aviation comes together thanks to a fantastic, hard-working team of contributors and staff.

I always get a buzz attending the (newly-renamed) Australasian Aviation Press Club’s annual aviation media awards presentation night when Australian Aviation contributors and editorial staff win awards.

To me it’s not winning awards that is important but it is the peer and industry recognition of the many talented writers who make Australian Aviation in our many forms – web, print and digital magazine and app – a publication worth reading.

Then there are the big efforts of the small Phantom Media team of support staff. Their late nights and hard efforts as deadlines peak each month are the reasons you have this magazine before you.

One of those deserves special mention. This is the last issue that designer Nicholas Eccles, who has been with Phantom Media for over five years, will work on.

For the last few years Nic has been studying architecture, and he starts work with an architectural firm in January. Nic, thanks for all your hard work, can-do mindset and support over the years.

It will, says Muilenburg, help “create innovation that’s leading edge”.