Management Structure of Boeing Essay

Considering how the Boeing Company has a strong presence worldwide and has employees and partnerships located in 70 countries, it has implemented a management structure to achieve maximum efficiency of the multi-billion dollar business. This structure is called a matrix structure, where this essentially allocates a Senior Vice President to each of the many department heads who oversee all movements the company makes as well as managing every employee within that division. These departments range from areas such as: Engineering & Technology to Law Department to Human Resources as well as Business Development and are all managed by the CEO, W. James McNerney. All of these divisions of Boeing run independently of one another, however they do collaborate together to ensure the company continues to be the achieve the most efficient and stable environment that it can. The matrix management structure is also advantageous to the Boeing Company since they are continuously filling out long-term contracts for various airlines around the globe and is in need of several functional organized departments. Since these departments collaborate together, various tasks of the project given are delegated between the necessary departments who then come together after completion of these given tasks and put together the prototype. Employees and resources are also allocated temporarily to other divisions of Boeing for various projects depending on the magnitude and the time given for project completion. However, there are some disadvantages to the matrix structure. There is a tendency to ‘lean’ towards one side of the matrix or the other, this can lead to problems such as project delays and extension requests by employees which inevitably cost the company time and money as seen by the delay of the 787 Dreamliner construction.