Wednesday, September 11

Contributed by Kim Miller, Global Supply Chain Executive MBA, Sr. Manager Supplier, Management Product Development at Boeing:

Kevin Harris gives a regional SC overview to the GSC students

"Today the GSC EMBA students had the opportunity to listen to and engage with Kevin Harris, Executive Director, Russell Reynolds Associates.  Kevin's presentation was a riveting and informative  2 1/2 hour look at supply chain organization structure and strategy as well as senior executive search, assessment and mitigation.  He stressed the importance of ceasing an opportunity to work abroad learning from international assignments. From his perspective, as a provider of senior-level executive search and assessment, this experience is necessary for the growth and development of future Senior Executives as they learn from the challenges and opportunities of dealing with different cultures, laws and business environments.  Kevin also talked about the supply chain strategic positioning, flexible sourcing, supply chain team structure and expeditious product development. Leveraging the talent pool in all areas of the supply chain organization is important to ensure speed to the market with constant innovation".

While Global Supply Chain EMBA students got a regional supply chain overview from Kevin Harris, Aerospace and Defense EMBA and EMBA for Strategic Leadership students attended  individual site visits. Tom Delash, VP, EADS North America and Javier Hernandez, Director of Engineering, BBA Aviation, shared their experience with visiting Airbus FAL (final assembly line) in Tienjen. 

The Airbus Tianjin facility

 "The FAL operation is a JV between Airbus and AVICC (Aviation Industry Corporation of China) and has been in place for about 10 years.  The FAL is set up to deliver A320 and A319 aircraft to Asian customers, and plans to eventually expand to the new A321. The Airbus Tianjin FAL produces between 3 and 4 Airbus A320's per month, mostly for customers within China, although some small sales have been made to customers in other parts of Asia. The facility and workflow is setup identically to the facilities in Europe, thus allowing standard work and tooling to be implemented in Tianjin with minimal re-engineering.  The direct labor workforce is comprised mostly (if not all) of locals. Over time, the number of expats from Europe has steadily declined to a negligible number now, mostly due to the high cost. The turnover rate of skilled workers is surprisingly high (80%), even though the pay scale is well above the local average.  The workers get a bonus after 5 years, and many leave after collecting the bonus."