Aircraft
Boeing Commercial Looks To Ease Sole-Supplier Threats

Boeing’s well-documented development struggles with the new 787 Dreamliner raised questions over the wisdom of its plan to reduce the number of its suppliers and to place more responsibility with them for design and management of their own supply chains. However, at the time, the industry’s supplier base had become “thicker,” meaning it had added more layers, resulting in more specialization and incentive for OEMs such as Boeing to lean more heavily on their Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers to conduct their own supply management functions.

But now, Boeing has established a goal of spreading risk within its supply chain by actively seeking more than one source for given components across its commercial airplane line, raising new questions about whether it has reconsidered the philosophy it adopted more than a decade ago.