How boeing and Alcoa implemented Asuccessful vendor Managed Inventory program

HOW BOEING AND ALCOA IMPLEMENTED A SUCCESSFUL VENDOR MANAGED INVENTORY PROGRAM By Victoria A. Micheau Describes what led to the success of partnership between Boeing and Alcoa … for a VMI program to succeed, there must be adaptation, flexibility and streamlining in both the organizations … electronic platform helps in communicating forecasts between parties quickly and in an orderly manner. Boeing’s Skin and Spar facility enjoys a relationship with its raw material supplier, Alcoa, which pays off big for both companies. The pay off came about through a comprehensive restructuring of our supply chain. Skin and Spar is the supplier of large wing products for most of Boeing’s commercial airplanes. As airplane production increased, we started to experience difficulties with the supply of our raw material. After looking into the situation we identified a couple of things that were causing the difficulties: - First, the transportation system used, railcar, made the delivery of parts within a defined window, which were unreliable at best. - Second, the order of multiples and minimum quantities we were using were distorting the forecast we provided to Alcoa. This distortion led to ...