BOEING'S GLOBAL ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY PROCESS

Personality-driven research is avoided by applying systems engineering to R&D management in the company's central research organization.

OVERVIEW:

Managing R&D in a large enterprise is ultimately about achieving momentum in the marketplace. Over the last three years, The Boeing Company has developed and applied a new process for managing its enterprise-level research and development. This process, the Global Enterprise Technology System (GETS), provides a strategically-driven and systems-engineering-based approach to managing innovation. The process combines insights from systems engineering, software process improvement, organizational psychology, and anthropology to provide a coherent approach to innovation in a large enterprise. The approach seeks to address the business, technical and cultural aspects of technology management. The need to recognize inherent differences among a company's various business areas without forcing process commonality is one of several lessons learned to date.