A good strategy to guarantee your business is to help the companies in front of you in the chain to survive and improve their performance. Boeing has started to pursue this strategy in a really good way.

Boeing and Satair recently signed a long-term agreement as part of Boeing's Integrated Materials Management (IMM) initiative. Through this program, Boeing and selected suppliers such as Satair maintain an airline's inventory of maintenance supplies, including spare parts, and provide items only as needed. By reducing the airline's own inventory, IMM reduces an airline's cost of doing business.

IMM builds on existing materials management programs that Boeing has with several airlines, including airtran, All Nippon Airways, Delta, KLM, Japan Airlines, Japan Transocean Air and Singapore Airlines. This program is the next advance in expanding Boeing's supply-chain services and brings the total number of IMM suppliers to six, including Satair.