在这两个咒语的生产业务vertical industries has become, “Reduce the cost of producing the product.” While optimization of production processes, including lean manufacturing methods and continuous process improvement, has long been the stalwart for cost savings, the emphasis has steadily been shifting to incorporate outsourcing as a key factor in the cost reduction equation. Auto and airplane makers are looking to global outsourcing—along with shared engineering and risk with their partners—to reduce costs.
Outsourcing the components and sub-assemblies that comprise the finished product is nothing new to the automotive and aerospace industries. The respective supply chains and outsourcing maps for these sectors represent some of the most diverse, global and complex value chains across all manufacturing sectors. An emerging trend has been to push aspects of the final assembly further downstream to sub-contractors, partners and tier one suppliers.
Reduce interruptions
The change is to have increasingly larger sub-assemblies or systems come into the final automobile or airplane assembly line rather than components and smaller sub-assemblies that require scheduling and inventory management. This significantly reduces the overall final assembly time and materials management. Because interruptions that occur on the production line are more costly than in any other area of the factory, fewer items to assemble translate to a reduction of resources, including humans, machines and equipment, with significant cost savings and faster delivery of the product.
Two of the factors contributing to increased outsourcing in the automotive sector are: the development of more modular designs, using self-contained functional units with standardized interfaces that can serve as building blocks for a variety of products; and common vehicle platforms, in which a common chassis and key components serve as a basis for multiple models. Once modularity is integrated into the product design and the manufacturing processes, outsourcing can become much more extensive and can effect a dramatic reshaping of the overall value chain and product lifecycle.
一些论点已经出现了外包，例如通过共享供应商将流程专业知识和相关产品知识转移到竞争对手的可能性，以及将专有知识转移到控制关键模块的供应商的风险。随着汽车行业稳步走向较短的产品开发生命生命周期，全球化，优化的供应链和共同平台，这些论点正在消散。
航空航天制造业传统上将飞机子组件的高百分比外包给供应商，合作伙伴和子承包商。外包现在代表了波音和空中客车最终飞机的70％。波音发起了与日本航空航天联盟等主要子承包商的共同风险制造，由富士，川崎和三菱，在777架飞机计划上。这些次承包商建立了在埃弗雷特的波音最终装配厂的主要车身部分，这不仅意味着共享工程设计规范，而且允许分包商开发自己的制造机身组件的制造工艺。
赌博公司？
虽然业界的一些观察者认为波音的外包策略在经济上和制造效率的角度来看，但是，其他人争夺公司通过与外部合作伙伴分享其制造技术，这是一项重要的赌博。
波音拒绝了一些放弃技术的概念。虽然其供应商合作伙伴可以获得与新的7E7飞机上的翅膀相关的详细规格，但是将在内部设计和由波音工程师进行控制。此外，波音还表示，它将对其两种核心竞争力保持紧张的抓地力：空气动力学设计和大规模的系统集成，后者是建立产品作为大型商业喷气式飞机衬里复杂的产品的必要核心竞争力。
鸡巴斯坦基，dslansky@arcweb.com.，是ARC咨询小组的高级分析师。
