The comments on Wednesday at Boeing's annual investor meeting in Seattle reflect growing pressure from commercial and military customers to keep costs down, as well as its own difficulties in building the advanced 787 Dreamliner, which suffered years of delays and cost overruns.

"Our mind-set will be to avoid the moon shot," Mr. McNerney told shareholders in the world's largest aerospace company, which decades ago built part of the Saturn V rockets and the lunar rover used in the Apollo space program. He said that Boeing today is looking to mimic incremental product development trends in the auto and consumer electronics sectors. "We want to be more like Apple," he said.

Mr. McNerney's comments came as Boeing reiterated its existing financial guidance for 2014, but outlined a series of efforts to cut the cost of developing and producing new commercial and military products. Those included plans to cut another $2.1 billion over the next five years from the cost base of its defense arm, which already has trimmed around $4 billion under existing initiatives.

Both Boeing and rival Airbus Group EADSY +1.57% NV have been stung by problems in developing all-new planes, and both are unlikely to introduce clean-sheet designs before the end of the next decade. Boeing over the last two years has opted to revamp its two best-selling commercial jets, the single-aisle 737 and the widebody 777, rather than build all-new replacements. Airbus has taken a similar approach with upgrading its A320.