Aircraft
Delivering "the perfect airplane"
“I hate calling problems on airplanes ‘squawks,’” Jim Schuster, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Aircraft Co., said last month.

“I hate calling problems on airplanes ‘squawks,’” Jim Schuster, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Aircraft Co., said last month. “Squawk–it just sounds bad. But even more I hate how we’ve been taking it for granted that the customer is going to find squawks when he takes delivery of his airplane. To me that’s just an indication of poor quality.”

So one of Schuster’s goals for RAC is to deliver only defect-free airplanes to its customers, what he calls “the perfect airplane.” Toward reaching this goal, RAC’s delivery center sought input from customers to find out their definition of the perfect airplane. “Our customers were very helpful, especially Executive Jet, one of our most demanding customers,” said Sarah Humbolt, Raytheon Six Sigma Expert. “But Executive Jet’s input has made our customer-acceptance checklists that much better.”