Boeing’s going through a bit of a rough patch with its 787 Dreamliner program. We’ve been chronicling the delays due to design and especially supply chain issues, while at the same time admiring their ability to take significant risks to radically change aircraft technology. You’d think they would have every possible resource dedicated to fixing the Dreamliner problems.
Apparently they still have time to help out non-profit organizations. It’s a laudable thing to do, so we won’t knock them for the effort. But based on Boeing’s recent history I’m a little fearful about the impact on the non-profit… in this case the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.
At first, penguins and airplanes seem to have little in common. After all, penguins can’t fly.
Neither can the 787 Dreamliner. Yet. Sorry… that was just too easy to resist.
The Seattle zoo is one of a handful of nonprofits that Boeing has
trained in lean process techniques, an efficiency program closely
associated with manufacturing that eliminates costs by reducing wasted
time and materials."The value of doing this is, it saves us a ton of time," said Bruce
Bohmke, deputy director at the zoo. Using lean techniques to design the
new penguin habitat, the zoo was able to reduce its exhibit design
cycle to eight months from 18.
Not bad. The penguin habitat designer should work for Boeing. Oops… she apparently does. So the next question is obviously… sorry, couldn’t resist again… has Boeing taught the zoo that the most efficient animal feed supply chain is to clone a wild animal to transport feed from a different continent instead of the feed facility next door?
Perhaps they could call the mutated blue heronesque creature the "Feedlifter."