Randy's Journal: Archives

23 February 2005

Talking airplanes with Peter Jennings in Renton

Last week we had a wonderful opportunity. ABC World News Tonight, one of the top television news programs in the U.S., sent its anchorman, Peter Jennings, to Seattle for a couple of days of live broadcasts. For a report about Boeing we hosted Peter and his news crew at our 737 assembly complex in Renton, Washington for most of a morning.

Along with Vice President and General Manager of 737 Programs Carolyn Corvi, I spent well over an hour with Mr. Jennings, going through airplanes - literally - and walking the line. I have to say it was great to have someone of the stature of Peter Jennings here to see how we build airplanes. He and his ABC news crew were a delight to work with. I got the impression they were truly interested in our story. Jennings wasn't just going through the motions. He actually got into it - at one point he crawled into the cargo bay of one of the airplanes with Carolyn to have a chat.

The newsman was very intrigued with the people story - the employees - and how families seem to go back with Boeing over the generations. In a conversation not included in the final broadcast, Jennings asked Carolyn whether it was true that working at Boeing tends to run in the family. She told him that's very true for many employees. In fact, Carolyn told him, her husband works at Boeing, and so did her Dad.

We spent a lot of time talking about what we call "lean manufacturing." It's a process put into place several years ago in Renton, and it has resulted in the shortest final assembly time of any large commercial jet. The Next Generation 737 is now assembled in 11 days - a 50% reduction since lean techniques were introduced in 1999. We toured the entire length of the 737 assembly line, where the aircraft moves from one assembly team to the next at the steady pace of two inches per minute. Jennings commented to Carolyn, "You must be really proud of what you've done with this production line." Carolyn's reply was interesting. She said, basically: Well it's not me. They did it - the employees. The lean techniques served to enable people to do all these things.

And aside from all the tech stuff, Peter Jennings was really interested in how the people at Boeing feel about being on the front lines in the highly competitive commercial airplane business. At one point the ABC News anchor asked a person on the line, "When some airline buys Airbus instead of Boeing, is that felt on the floor?" The individual didn't miss a beat. He said, "We take it personally, we certainly do."

But what really struck me was when Jennings asked the man whether it was just a matter of preferring airlines to all "buy American." No, he said, "We prefer them to buy the best product. We think we have the best product."

I couldn't have said it better myself.