Tag: Boeing 747

OM in the News: Life Cycle and the Last Boeing 747

Some legends really are true, writes The New York Times (Feb. 1, 2023), and indeed it is the case that two men on an Alaskan fishing trip in the mid-1960s struck a bargain that wound up starting the era of the jumbo jetliner, which democratized air travel.

The first 747 being rolled out of the factory in 1968

“If you build it, I’ll buy it,” said Juan Trippe, the head of Pan American World Airways.

“If you buy it, I’ll build it,” countered Bill Allen, the president of the Boeing.

Remarkably, barely three years after a handshake agreement, the Boeing 747 rolled out of a giant factory north of Seattle. It quickly made global air travel more affordable than it had ever been. This week, 53 years after the first Pan Am passenger flights between New York and London, the 1,574th — and last — Boeing 747 took to the skies.

The 747 was nearly three times the size and capacity of any jet airliner at the time, and with that distinctive double-decker bulge, it looked like none of its predecessors.  All told, 747s have carried more than six billion passengers 60 billion nautical miles, the equivalent of 144,000 trips to the moon and back.

The last Boeing 747 leaves Everett, Wash.

The “Queen of the Skies” is passing out of fashion because nimbler, more energy efficient jetliners with just two engines have come along to do a better job of getting people from point to point internationally. In the mid-90s, Boeing introduced the two-engine 777, which was about as big as the 747, but more advanced and efficient. A decade later, Boeing’s main rival, Airbus, debuted the A380, which can carry more passengers than the 747. But Airbus struggled to sell the plane and ended production in 2019.

The 747 is composed of about 6 million parts produced all over the world. But the final work of assembling them into an airplane was completed at a factory in Everett, Washington. That plant, regarded as the world’s largest building by volume, was built for the 747 in the 1960s.

The final 747 went to Apex Logistics, a huge transport company, which still views it as an ideal choice because of its reliability and ability to fly huge amounts of goods.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Figure 2.5 in your Heizer/Render/Munson text illustrates the life cycle of 10 products. Where do the current Boeing planes (737 Max, 747, 777, and 787) each fall?
  2. Why was the 13 year life cycle of Airbus’ Superjumbo A380 so much briefer?

OM in the News: Product Life Cycle and the Boeing 747

1970: The aircrew of the first commercial passenger flight of the Boeing 747, which flew from NYC to London for Pan American Airways.

Having worked on the design team for McDonnell Douglas’ DC-10 jumbo jet in the late 1960’s, I have followed the industry and competition with great interest. The DC-10 died a fairly quick death, but Boeing’s even larger plane, the 747, became the iconic symbol of success when introduced in 1970. Only 180 of the original 747s, dubbed the Queen of the Skies, remain in passenger service. Boeing built more than 1,500 of them but the 24 orders that still remain on the books are all freighters. Delta and United, the last U.S. airlines flying the giant, both retired their remaining 747s late last year.

The 747—six stories tall, with a wingspan more than 70 yards wide and the fully loaded weight of 7 M1 Abrams tanks—was a breakthrough in aviation, writes The Wall Street Journal (June 7, 2018). It revolutionized international air travel, bringing affordable tickets to the masses and making it far easier to jet between continents.

At the time, aircraft design was more focused on supersonic planes such as Europe’s 100-seat Concorde. Not fully believing in the passenger potential for a whale of a plane, Boeing designed the 747 with a distinctive bubble top for the cockpit so that when used to carry freight, containers could be loaded right up to the nose of the plane. The 747 became the most identifiable plane in the skies, and a symbol of American engineering and manufacturing prowess in the 1970s and 1980s.

But its 4 engines led to the plane’s descent from passenger airline service. Two-engine jets burn less fuel yet grew to closely match the 747’s carrying capacity. United had 374 seats on its recently retired 747s; its 777s carry 366 passengers and burn 25% less fuel. Airbus has also struggled with its 4-engine A380 superjumbo. Over the past 12 years, only 223 A380s have been delivered. No airline other than Emirates has placed an A380 order for over 2 years.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Referring to Figure 2.1 (page 41), where do the 747, 737, and 787 appear on the Product Life Cycle curve?
  2. Has any plane in commercial production survived longer than the 747? Why?

OM in the News: Everything Has a Life Cycle, Including the 747

Retired Delta 747s in the Arizona desert

There may be no airliner as recognizable as the Boeing 747, the world’s first jumbo jet, with its iconic hump of an upper deck. The introduction of the “Queen of the Skies” was a triumph of engineering and grace: unprecedented size and speed with spiral-staircase international glamour. But the airline business has changed, and the giant plane has become more expensive to operate. A couple of weeks ago, the final 747 flight by any commercial U.S. airline took to the sky.

“Like so many others before it,” writes The New York Times (Jan. 20, 2018), “the plane was heading to the Southwest to retire.”  Hours after takeoff from Delta’s Atlanta hub, the jet was circling Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, making its final approach to Pinal Airpark, between Phoenix and Tucson. It’s an ideal place to store airplanes long-term, and about 120 aircraft are parked there now, scattered across the desert floor. The dry air prevents major corrosion, so their parts can be used to help keep other planes flying. About 50% of the retirees are stripped and sold for scrap. But some end up working for air carriers in Africa, Asia and South America, for whom buying a used aircraft is a lot more affordable than buying new, even though they are less fuel-efficient.

The 747 aircraft was a marvel for when it was built. But, a marvel of 1960s engineering is not necessarily suited to 2018 industry needs. Many airlines are moving to a business model that focuses on connecting more cities directly with smaller, more fuel-efficient planes, rather than funneling passengers through a few large hubs. As we state in Chapter 5: “Products are born. They live and they die.”

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. How is production of a 747 different from making a 737?
  2. What are the major OM issues facing Boeing, as maker of the 747, and customers of the plane, such as Delta?

OM in the News: Boeing Goes Long with New 747-8 Jet

Eighteen feet. That may not sound like much, but it’s the length added to Boeing’s new version of the 747, called the 747-8 Intercontinental commercial jet. This added length makes the 747-8 the longest jetliner in the world, says USA Today (Feb.14,2011), trumping Airbus’ A380 superjumbo by 12 feet.

The 747-8 is a great example of  what we call “product enhancement” in Chapter 5. Rather than develop an all new plane, as Boeing did with the 787 Dreamliner and Airbus did with the A380,  Boeing chose the less risky and cheaper  path of  enhancing a successful, trusted plane that has been selling since 1969. As you probably know, both the 787 and the A380 have run into multi-year delays. Boeing’s strategy had worked well in the past, taking the world’s best-selling plane, the 737 (first introduced in 1967) and adding numerous enhancements over the decades.

The 747-8 actually took advantage of some of the new technology the firm created for the 787. The new wing design, engines, larger windows and storage bins all came from 787 innovations. The range, now 8,000 miles and more fuel-efficient engines make the updated plane a match for airlines with long, intercontinental flights. Lufthansa and Korean Air have ordered 25 planes so far.

The A380 is still the biggest plane by seating capacity (525 vs. 467 for the 747-8), height (79 ft. vs. 63 ft.), and range (300 miles more). But Boeing calls its enhanced jet  “that sweet spot in the market”.

Discussion questions:

1.  What is the difference between product enhancement and product migration?

2. Why was it important for Boeing to introduce the 747-8 model?

3. What were the major problems with the 787? (see our earlier blogs)