????在巴黎航展拿下502億美元大單僅僅一周后，全球最大的飛機制造商波音公司將馬上進行換帥，寄望新領導層能夠幫助該公司應對飆升的市場需求。

????波音公司總裁兼首席運營官丹尼斯·麥倫堡將于7月1日接替吉姆·麥克納尼，出任該公司CEO一職。此次換帥，正值該公司需要制定許多關鍵的中短期決策之際。此外，與其首要競爭對手空中客車公司一樣，波音還有好幾年的民用飛機訂單尚未交付。

????擺在新CEO案頭的事務有很多：隨著美國聯邦政府緊縮預算，應該如何處理日益不景氣的軍用飛機部門；是否應該砍掉一款經典的民用飛機生產線，或開辟一條新生產線；如何應對今年夏天美軍550億美元遠程轟炸機競標可能帶來的后果；以及，如何有效地提高民用客機的產能，以滿足創下歷史新高的全球需求。

????今年51歲的麥倫堡來自波音防空與航天部門，選擇他出任CEO，預示著公司高層的領導風格可能會有所改變。上任CEO吉姆·麥克納尼曾在3M和通用電氣擔任過高管，人人皆知他是一位財務高手。而麥倫堡則是一位專業的飛機工程師，已經在波音效力了30年之久，深諳軍用飛機行業的內部運作。

????航空與國防行業咨詢機構蒂爾集團副總裁理查德·阿波拉弗亞表示：“麥克納尼是一位數字狂人，他看重現金流和財務上的成功，你無論如何也想象不到他是一個搞飛機的人。而在航空界，麥倫堡是一位備受尊敬的行業專家。他是個工程師，不是會計師。我能想象，波音將有非常大的變化，除非是公司體系改變了這個人。”

????麥倫堡沒有余裕去選擇其中一些變革發生的時間，許多需要他決定的大事都是相對近期的。面對這些事情，麥倫堡將如何抉擇，不僅將影響到波音自身，在可預見的未來內，也將對整個飛機制造業產生影響。

????提高產能

????在民用客機方面，麥倫堡打算繼續提升廣受好評的波音737和787客機的產能，同時將現有的波音777客機的生產線改造為升級版的777X客機生產線。另外，麥倫堡還可能推出一款全新的中型客機，以填補已經停產的757客機留下的空白。然而，他不會遵循如何完成這些事情的既定藍圖。

????如果麥倫堡真的決定設計一款新的中型客機，波音最終可能要付出高達100億美元的研發成本。另外，考慮到要在未來10年逐漸增加777X機型的產量，麥倫堡可能還得相應地縮小現款777機型的產量——盡管后者是波音公司目前利潤空間更高的機型之一，而此舉在短期內也有可能對波音的賬面盈虧產生一定影響。

????RBC資本市場公司分析師羅伯·斯塔拉德在一份研究報告中寫道，至少在短期內，這些決策或許不會受到股東歡迎。“但就長期而言，它們很可能是必須要做的決定。在我們看來，這些決策更加有利于波音的長期增長與成功。”

????另外，由于波音747-8的訂單放緩，波音也快到了決定是否應該進一步降低這個口碑不佳的機型的產能，或者干脆停掉它的整條生產線的時候了。上周三，波音公司宣布，從明年開始，747-8的產量將從每月1.3架下降至每月1架。花旗全球市場公司高級分析師杰森·古爾斯基在今年6月發布的一份研究報告中指出：“該生產線在2020年前關掉的風險仍然存在。”最終，這個決定還是要由麥倫堡來拍板。

????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.