Lessons of the 787 and GM's Opel Division

Well, the first lesson is that airframers are running away from all composite aircraft, with Mitsubishi going from a composite wing to an aluminum one on its MRJ commuter jet, they say that this will make it easier to make changes to the wing to accommodate for things like stretched model. (See also here)

This is particularly noteworthy because Mitsubishi is already making the all composite wing for Boeing's 787, so they are very familiar with the structural problems of the 787 (see here, here. and here)

The thing is, that their assessment on this situation is probably more valid than Boeing's, because they understand the issues involved with composites more than Boeing does.

Boeing's policy of outsourcing major design and engineering decisions, along with risk, on the 787 has placed it in a situation rather similar to where GM is right now with regard to its suppliers:

Magna's planned acquisition of Opel is proof that carmakers have lost the upper hand in the industry by outsourcing development work to suppliers and relying on them for technological knowhow, a top GM executive said.

...

"We all had the vision that the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) should just assemble bits and pieces, do a little bit of marketing, a little bit of design and all the rest would be done by suppliers," he said.

"That was a nice vision. It sounds very lean, but the profit making opportunity is also shifting to the ones that have the technological knowhow. That is in very many cases now the supplier industry," the GM Europe president told the dinner.

The situation is not as straightforward with commercial aircraft, because certifying an aircraft is far more difficult than getting regulatory approval on a car, but as we can see, Mitsubishi is already on top of that process with its MRJ, and certifying a 70-100 seat aircraft is not appreciably more difficult from certifying a 400 seat aircraft.

This may be a situation where the political tensions in Airbus, which has limited them farming out technologies and design expertise, may serve them well in the future.

What's more, unlike an auto manufacturer there is no need to build a dealer network, which is a huge hill to climb.

Boeing's methods on the 787 may be a suicide pact for its commercial aircraft business.