Intergrated Defense System

On July 10, Boeing announced the merger of its Space and Communications and Military Aircraft and Missile Systems businesses into a new organization, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. One of the world’s largest space and defense businesses, IDS leverages more than five decades of expertise and the ingenuity of 78,000 employees around the world to provide systems solutions to its global customers. Organized around its customer base, the St. Louis–based IDS is a $23-billion-a-year business.

Leading the new organization is Jim Albaugh, president and CEO of IDS, formerly president and CEO of Boeing's Space and Communications business unit. Frontiers caught up with Jim recently to get his thoughts on the new organization and the benefits it brings to customers and employees.

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Cool as ICE

If two heads—working together—are better than one, then 14 or 15 are even better.

That's at least part of the theory behind the Concurrent Integrated Engineering Lab (CIEL), a new lab that functions as the gathering point of information for every satellite designed at Boeing Satellite Systems.

The concept of CIEL is simple: When you're designing a satellite, get everyone with a stake in the design in the same room at the same time, sharing the same information.

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LEAN-ing toward System of Systems

Anyone who thinks that "Lean" begins and ends on the manufacturing shop floor hasn't talked to Lee Wilbur.

Wilbur, the deputy program manager for the recently won Future Combat Systems program, is a champion of Lean thinking and is working to apply those principles to FCS—a system-of-systems program that doesn't even have a Boeing shop floor.

According to Wilbur, whether you're producing a piece of hardware or integrating a large, complex system of systems like FCS, the principles of continuous process improvement, eliminating waste and optimizing value for the customer can and should be applied.

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Regular as a heartbeat

Assembly of C-17 engine pylons is now taking place on a pulse line at Boeing St. Louis. It's the latest in a series of continuous improvements that have employed Lean manufacturing and affordability initiatives to reshape virtually every aspect of the pylon assembly process.

The pulse line is expected to reduce engine pylon assembly costs by 10 percent, improve the assembly cycle by 20 percent and save $6.7 million through production of the 180th aircraft, said Jeff Webb, the C-17 program's Lean and affordability focal in St. Louis.

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