A Short Stroll

This article highlights Boeing that is making a big investment to get engineers and manufacturers speaking face-to-face. Design engineers communicated mainly with the manufacturing side, including mechanics, builders, and manufacturing engineers, bye-mail and fax. When e-mails bounced back and forth, much was lost in translation. Mechanical engineers did not have hands-on access to parts they had designed. Change orders cropped up more than managers liked. Manufacturers had difficulty picking engineers’ brains, or asking them why they had designed a certain part just so. Boeing executives decided that the workspace should make interaction as easy as possible. Engineers did not have to lose the private cubicles where they felt most comfortable, but the cubes are now located a short stroll from the plant floor, in buildings that flank the assembly line. Boeing’s communication plan included posting updates on the company intra-net and posting fliers in prominent locations. Having managers speak to employees both in teams and one-on-one helped alleviate some of that anxiety.