Boeing door product center

~$50,000 per fuselage door derived from $150K sales-per-employee × 750 employees ÷ 250 doors. Cost accountants didn't know the per-door cost. Hand-drilled rivet holes drive labor share.

I had a student back in the '90s working at Boeing at the door product center. It's a completely deterministic manufacturing business. It takes three years to deliver an airplane from laying the keel beam to flying it away. The door product center takes about one year to produce the doors that go in the fuselage — you walk through the door when you get on an airplane. They know exactly how many doors they have to produce, because they know they've got these airplanes up in the Everett facility, the fuselages being built, and they know how many doors. There are exit doors, there are cargo doors — doors not much bigger than someone to crawl through, doors someone can walk through, and doors where they can take pallets, like a double garage door, in big 747s. There's all kinds of doors, but they have a door product center south of Seattle, I think it's in Tacoma.

Tom's student thesis. 250 employees, 750 doors/year, no per-door cost tracked because the unit operated as a Boeing cost center. Tom estimates ~$50,000/door using sales-per-employee heuristic; manager confirms.

Why is that important? Anybody know what the typical sales per employee of a manufacturing firm in the United States is? It's about $150,000 per person. I had a student do a thesis at the Boeing door product center once. This is where they make the doors for the aircraft. There are five or six doors on a 737 or a 747. There's the door you walk in. There's often the door on the other side where they bring the catering in. There might be a couple of those. There might be three or four emergency exits. There's usually a rear door, ramp and stuff. All kinds of different sizes, from emergency exits to the full-scale door. And in the cargo planes they have doors the size of a garage door.

mid-1990s plant tour. Deterministic manufacturing (orders three years out, doors one year out). Seven drillings per rivet hole. 750 doors, 250 employees → $50,000/door by the $100k-per-employee rule. Today probably a $100k door.