Condit pressed his divisions to speed up their manufacturing processes, but the assembly lines were still in the process of reconciling his new software with the old software, and the assembly lines backed up.
Another positive development was that Condit's innovations in assembly-line efficiency finally took hold, with the labor hours required to build a 737 dropping from a high of 30,000 to 6,500.
Condit instead went looking for complementary matches to Boeing's core business of commercial aircraft.
In 1965 Condit received an MS in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University and accepted a job at Boeing in Seattle.
Boeing Company
Condit introduced numerous new manufacturing techniques and aircraft designs that later resulted in huge savings in manufacturing all of Boeing's aircraft.
On March 12, 2001, Condit announced that he was moving Boeing's headquarters out of Seattle. He said he wanted to keep management out of day-to-day business operations
In April 1996 Condit became chief executive officer (CEO), replacing Frank Shrontz.
Retired chief executive officer and chairman of the board, Boeing Company
Since about 85 percent of the world's airliners had been built by Boeing, Condit began a new business dedicated to maintaining the aircraft for their owners, a business that had the potential to earn $74 billion a year.
Condit put on his wool sweater and walked into the picket lines and talked with picketers. He helped to find compromises that brought the strike to an end, and he won the enduring respect of the union members and of Boeing's engineers as well.
Osterland, Andrew, "Philip M. Condit of the Boeing Company," Financial World, April 15, 1997, pp. 66-71.