In Woodard's place was Alan Mullaly, the boyish-looking rising star and president of Boeing's space, defense and information division. The move also included the breaking up of Mulally's former division into three separate groups. Such moves underscore the sense of a company spinning somewhat out of control. It appears reeling from recent events and still struggling to pull together the disparate parts of an aerospace conglomerate that is so huge, it has no rival in it's scope or size in the entire world. For Boeing to soar again and for Condit to survive, he must put together a management team that can bring profits back to the commercial airplane division, optimize the economies of scale with the pieces of McDonnell Douglas, and increase shareholder value.
None are easy tasks.
It was a shocking announcement for the Boeing Co. in October 1997. The company was shutting down assembly lines for the 737 and 747 for 25 days while management solved parts shortages and got the assembly process back in order. Overtime was skyrocketing. A small army of employees were chasing planes along the line to finish assembly. The reasons behind the bottleneck are legion.