波音新CEO的艰难抉择

    在巴黎航展拿下502亿美元大单仅仅一周后，全球最大的飞机制造商波音公司将马上进行换帅，寄望新领导层能够帮助该公司应对飙升的市场需求。

    波音公司总裁兼首席运营官丹尼斯·麦伦堡将于7月1日接替吉姆·麦克纳尼，出任该公司CEO一职。此次换帅，正值该公司需要制定许多关键的中短期决策之际。此外，与其首要竞争对手空中客车公司一样，波音还有好几年的民用飞机订单尚未交付。

    摆在新CEO案头的事务有很多：随着美国联邦政府紧缩预算，应该如何处理日益不景气的军用飞机部门；是否应该砍掉一款经典的民用飞机生产线，或开辟一条新生产线；如何应对今年夏天美军550亿美元远程轰炸机竞标可能带来的后果；以及，如何有效地提高民用客机的产能，以满足创下历史新高的全球需求。

    今年51岁的麦伦堡来自波音防空与航天部门，选择他出任CEO，预示着公司高层的领导风格可能会有所改变。上任CEO吉姆·麦克纳尼曾在3M和通用电气担任过高管，人人皆知他是一位财务高手。而麦伦堡则是一位专业的飞机工程师，已经在波音效力了30年之久，深谙军用飞机行业的内部运作。

    航空与国防行业咨询机构蒂尔集团副总裁理查德·阿波拉弗亚表示：“麦克纳尼是一位数字狂人，他看重现金流和财务上的成功，你无论如何也想象不到他是一个搞飞机的人。而在航空界，麦伦堡是一位备受尊敬的行业专家。他是个工程师，不是会计师。我能想象，波音将有非常大的变化，除非是公司体系改变了这个人。”

    麦伦堡没有余裕去选择其中一些变革发生的时间，许多需要他决定的大事都是相对近期的。面对这些事情，麦伦堡将如何抉择，不仅将影响到波音自身，在可预见的未来内，也将对整个飞机制造业产生影响。

    提高产能

    在民用客机方面，麦伦堡打算继续提升广受好评的波音737和787客机的产能，同时将现有的波音777客机的生产线改造为升级版的777X客机生产线。另外，麦伦堡还可能推出一款全新的中型客机，以填补已经停产的757客机留下的空白。然而，他不会遵循如何完成这些事情的既定蓝图。

    如果麦伦堡真的决定设计一款新的中型客机，波音最终可能要付出高达100亿美元的研发成本。另外，考虑到要在未来10年逐渐增加777X机型的产量，麦伦堡可能还得相应地缩小现款777机型的产量——尽管后者是波音公司目前利润空间更高的机型之一，而此举在短期内也有可能对波音的账面盈亏产生一定影响。

    RBC资本市场公司分析师罗伯·斯塔拉德在一份研究报告中写道，至少在短期内，这些决策或许不会受到股东欢迎。“但就长期而言，它们很可能是必须要做的决定。在我们看来，这些决策更加有利于波音的长期增长与成功。”

    另外，由于波音747-8的订单放缓，波音也快到了决定是否应该进一步降低这个口碑不佳的机型的产能，或者干脆停掉它的整条生产线的时候了。上周三，波音公司宣布，从明年开始，747-8的产量将从每月1.3架下降至每月1架。花旗全球市场公司高级分析师杰森·古尔斯基在今年6月发布的一份研究报告中指出：“该生产线在2020年前关掉的风险仍然存在。”最终，这个决定还是要由麦伦堡来拍板。

    One week after logging new aircraft orders worth $50.2 billion at the Paris Air Show, Boeing—the world’s largest airplane manufacturer—is tapping new leadership to help the company keep pace with spiking demand.

    Boeing BA -0.38% president and COO Dennis Muilenburg will step into the CEO role vacated by Jim McNerney on July 1. The change in leadership comes at a time when the company faces a laundry list of key near- and medium-term decisions, and both Boeing—and chief rival Airbus EADSY 0.15% — enjoy multi-year backlogs for their commercial jetliners.

    On the new CEO’s desk: What to do with a defense unit that’s losing ground in a tough federal budget environment; whether or not to cancel one iconic commercial jet line and/or inaugurate a new one; how to deal with the fallout from this summer’s $55 billion Long Range Strike Bomber decision; and, how the company should effectively ramp up commercial jet production to meet historic levels of global demand.

    The 51-year-old Muilenburg hails from Boeing’s defense and space unit, and his selection signals something of a culture change for the company’s executive leadership. McNerney, who previously held executive positions at 3M and General Electric Co., is known as more of a finance geek. Meanwhile, his replacement is an aircraft engineer and 30-year Boeing veteran with a deep knowledge of the defense industry’s inner workings.

    “McNerney is a numbers guy, it was all about money and a vision for financial success, and he was not an aircraft person by any stretch of the imagination,” says Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at aerospace and defense consultancy Teal Group. “Muilenburg is quite respected in the aircraft world, he comes from that background. He’s an engineer, not an accountant. I would imagine there will be very big changes unless the system changes the person.”

    Muilenburg won’t have the luxury of choosing the timing of some of those changes, as several decision points are coming his way in the relatively near-term. How he deals with these decisions will impact not only Boeing, but also the $60 billion businesses’ foreseeable future.

    Ramping up production

    On the commercial side, Muilenburg inherits plans to ramp up production of its popular 737 and 787 aircraft, transition the company’s existing 777 line toward production of an updated model known as 777X, and potentially launch an all-new, mid-size jet marketed at the space previously served by Boeing’s out-of-production 757 jetliner. What he won’t inherit, however, is a blueprint for exactly how to do these things.

    The decision to design a brand new aircraft for the mid-size market could end up costing Boeing $10 billion in development costs. Muilenburg will also have to choose how much to scale back production of the current 777—one of the company’s more profitable models—in anticipation of increasing 777X production in the next decade, another move that could hurt Boeing’s near-term bottom line.

    RBC Capital Markets analyst Rob Stallard wrote in a note to investors that shareholders could receive these decisions poorly, at least in the near-term. “But longer term they are arguably the calls that need to be made,” he writes, “and in our view could be healthier for Boeing’s longer-term growth and success.”

    Boeing is also nearing a point in time where it will have to decide whether or not to further cut back on production of its hulking 747-8 model, or even retire it altogether in the face of slow orders. Last Wednesday, the company announced it would further cut production to just one aircraft per month (from 1.3 per month previously) starting next year. Jason Gursky, a senior analyst at Citigroup Global Markets, noted in a June research report that the “risk remains that the line will need to close by the end of the decade.” Ultimately, Muilenburg will have to make that call in the end.