A New Airplane for a New World: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Design Management Review, Fall 2006 by Barratt, John, Dowd, Ken

A multibillion-dollar company wants to redefine the experience of commercial air travel. In partnership with a design firm known for its expertise in this special area, the two set forth on a collaborative venture to determine the needs and desires of travelers. John Barratt and Ken Dowd describe the strategies, processes, and circumstances involved in supporting the design of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the most successful commercial airplane launch in history.

Today, the concept of collaboration in design is considered somewhat conventional. Gone are the days when clients and designers met infrequently only to separate into self-contained production groups. With the advance of technology, collaborative design increasingly takes place across geographical and perceptual boundaries, creating teams that span the globe. Typically, however, these relationships, as liquid as their boundaries may be, develop with certain, and often anticipated limitations.

Is it possible for designers to work seamlessly with clients? Can talent from both the client and design sides set aside personal, departmental, and companydriven egos for the greater good and create a single, exceptional team? The Boeing Company and Teague team-and their unique 60-year working relationship-prove that exceptional talent can unite a team and lead the members to greatness.

This case study examines the distinctive collaborative design process and research strategy created and implemented by Teague and The Boeing Company to rejuvenate the spirit of flight through interior and architectural design channels. Due to the scope of the project, collaboration across varied disciplines was essential. The overarching design process for the purpose of a collaborative business paradigm, as well as the extraordinary design efforts produced by the collaboration between Teague and Boeing, will be discussed in this article.

A decade of design

Unlike the majority of product design efforts, the design of a commercial airplane requires an extended amount of time in terms of development and research. Based on the average replacement cycle of airplanes, as well as competitive market forces and available investment options, commercial airplanes-from inception to market-are introduced, on average, once a decade. Once every 10 years. That is an almost inconceivable timeframe in this day and age of instant technology and shrinking shelf life. For the purpose of comparison, a single electronics company-such as Samsung or Nokia-can introduce in excess of 300 mobile phones into the market in a single year. That's nearly one new mobile phone launch every day. At that rate, 3,000 new mobile phones could be brought to market over a period of 10 years.

That being said, the economic potential of an airplane is undeniably substantial. Once completed, an airplane's real estate is among the most valuable in the world. The revenue generated per square meter of an airplane is roughly 600 times greater than that of the most expensive real estate in the United States. Therefore, the success or failure of one product within the aviation industry drastically affects not only the company that designs and manufactures it, but also numerous other airline and flight-dependent companies worldwide.

Dream team

Traditionally, a project of this scope is compartmentalized, undertaken in segments across teams that specialize in diverse disciplines. Boeing jetliners have been designed in the past in this way, and they have been successful; however, with the lofty goals of the 787 project came both the need and the desire to design a new process of collaboration and cross-team integration. The design team comprised designers, engineers, sales and marketing, differentiation, and manufacturing representatives, as well as partners and vendors. Representatives of these key areas would influence all areas of research, design, and development. For example, without precedence and with a seemingly counterintuitive logic, a designer would be responsible not only for design but also for providing solutions to marketing and sales obstacles, engineering issues, manufacturing challenges, and any other facet of the 787's development that might affect its final success. The same would apply to all other team members, regardless of their specialties or disciplines.

To ensure that all areas were represented in tandem, the team held meetings over a period of five years in addition to the daily collaborative process. These meetings were held every Thursday from 2001 to 2006, bringing the team together to forge new ideas, to perfect existing concepts, to discuss research findings, and to engage in philosophical discussions. In addition to weekly meetings, the co-location of the team afforded them daily interaction across disciplines as needed. The team also traveled together to aviation expositions across the globe to gain a group perspective of the industry's past, present, and future.

Inspired design

The 787 Dreamliner was inspired by a preceding design: the Sonic Cruiser concept, unveiled by Boeing in 2001. This new transonic jetliner was designed to cruise at speeds 15 to 20 percent faster than any commercial aircraft currently on the market. However, the seismic economic global shifts after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, halted the development of the Sonic Cruiser. The Boeing 7E7 (later christened the 787) represented a new concept based on fuel efficiency and low operating costs. In fact, the E in 7E7 stood for efficiency. It was clear from the outset that the commissioners of this airplane were expecting technological advancements that would make new efficiencies-from travel speed to interior travel comforts- possible.