Tuesday 19 October 2010


The cost of knowledge loss at Boeing



According to the Press and Journal, Scotland

When Boeing offered early retirement to 9,000 senior employees during a business downturn, an unexpected rush of new commercial airplane orders left the company critically short of skilled production workers.
The knowledge lost from veteran employees, combined with the inexperience of their replacements, threw the firm’s 737 and 747 assembly lines into chaos. Overtime skyrocketed and workers were chasing planes along the line to finish assembly.

Management finally had to shut down production for more than three weeks to straighten out the assembly process, which forced Boeing to take a $1.6billion charge against earnings and contributed to an eventual management shake-up.

Press and Journal Scotland, 1/9/2008

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