Waiting for the Dreamliner? Dream On!

[Guest fountainhall]

Poor Boeing! Just after Airbus announced that it had gained more aircraft sales than Boeing in 2010, the Dreamliner is delayed yet again! Now 3 years overdue, delivery has been delayed from the first quarter of 2011 to the third quarter.

 

Said General Manager of the 787 programme, Scott Fancher:

 

[Guest]

Poor Boeing!

 

Self inflicted. No sympathy is due, not after so many delays.

[Guest Thor69]

I'd much rather see the plane delayed and properly tested than just releasing a model before it is ready. Don't worry about Boeing they'll do just fine. Their products are much better than competing ones and in the end I'd put my money on Boeing.

[Bob]

I'd much rather see the plane delayed and properly tested than just releasing a model before it is ready. Don't worry about Boeing they'll do just fine. Their products are much better than competing ones and in the end I'd put my money on Boeing.

 

I'm a Boeing fan too and Im seriously hoping that the 787 turns out to be a gem.

 

However, presuming I was on the board of directors of Boeing, I'd do some serious house cleaning. Whoever put together the production plans for this plane and/or whoever engineered some of the parts (and, importantly, the methods to put the international parts together) ought to be seriously questioned. And so should the top officers as it was their job to know what they hell people below them were doing and to stop what wouldn't work and what wasn't realistic. Maybe it's time to hire officers and directors who actually know something about building planes?

[KhorTose]

IHowever, presuming I was on the board of directors of Boeing, I'd do some serious house cleaning. Whoever put together the production plans for this plane and/or whoever engineered some of the parts (and, importantly, the methods to put the international parts together) ought to be seriously questioned.

 

One of my friend's wife was one of three people who ran parts of the company and reported directly to Phil Condit, the ex CEO of Boeing. Here is the story as I heard it. It was Phil Condit's idea to farm out the manufacturing of the 787. He figured that the more countries that were involved in the construction the more planes that would be sold. Unfortunitely one of the plants he picked was in Naples, Italy. Enough said about how things work or not in Naples. He also wanteds to weaken the very powerful machinest Union by making them smaller and easier to deal with.

 

Now when the CEO before Phil Condit retired, many thought the new CEO would be Alan Mulally who was in charge of manufacturing, However, the ex-CEO and the board found Alan to be a little to abrasive, and the assembly process less then efficient, so they appointed Condit. One of the first things Condit did was to merge with McDonald Douglas. As a result of the merger a real power struggle came about between the executive of Douglas and Boeing as to who would do what where, etc. One result of this competition was that some executives like Boeing's defense dept chief Sears tried too hard to succeed. Sears illegally received inside information from an Air Force contractor and was fired and jailed. Condit had to resign over this scandal, as there was evidence that he knew of Sear's tactic. Once again Mulally was passed up and ex-Douglas CEO Stonecipher was appointed to run Boeing. He too was forced to resign for an affair with a female executive and the board went outside to 3M to hire their new CEO, who knew nothing about the air industry. At this point Alan Mulally resigned and became CEO of Ford Motor company, which is a very good stock to have at the moment.

 

Not the first, nor will it be the last company that has made some incredibly dumb decisions. I own no Boeing, and it wil be a long time before I buy any.

[KhorTose]

Yes, it is still a mess.

 

As Boeing's 787 Dreamliner program creeps toward first delivery this year, managers are intensifying efforts to smooth production. But people working on the airplanes and others familiar with the state of the program say progress is painfully slow.

 

While Boeing may meet its deadline to deliver the first 787 to All Nippon Airways of Japan before Sept. 30, the production pace projected for 2011 appears out of reach.

 

Boeing executives told Wall Street analysts in January the company would deliver somewhere between a dozen and 20 Dreamliners this year.

 

"It isn't going to happen," said one mechanic working on the airplanes. "There are too many jobs to be done."

 

One job taking weeks per airplane is the painstaking removal of sealant from the interior of fuel tanks in the wings, then resealing them.

 

And because the computerized system that provides mechanics with data on parts isn't operating well, even simpler modifications take much longer than they should.

 

Boeing has leased extra space so it can work on multiple airplanes at the same time.

 

Managers last week held all-hands meetings aimed at galvanizing the work force, and formed employee committees to identify and solve the major holdups.

 

Tough questions ahead

 

On Wednesday, when Boeing releases its quarterly earnings results, executives no doubt will be questioned about the state of the 787 program.

 

Six Dreamliners are flying flight tests, while 29 more have rolled off the assembly line and are parked on the Everett flight line or at adjacent Paine Field.

 

Those planes await thousands of incomplete assembly jobs and modifications necessary because of design changes since they were built.

 

Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter conceded Monday that the rework is a difficult challenge, and she acknowledged the two specific problems raised by 787 insiders: the wing sealing and the computer data glitches.

 

Still, she insisted, there is a "very specific airplane by airplane plan" for completing the rework.

 

"Nothing we've seen ... is raising red flags for us," she said.

 

In an effort to come to grips with the extensive rework, Boeing is modifying one Dreamliner in Texas, two more inside the main Everett assembly plant, and five airplanes inside a large hangar at the south end of Paine Field leased from maintenance and repair company Aviation Technical Services (ATS).

 

Plenty of headaches

 

Yet, those close to the program say production headaches continue.

 

"The assembly process is still a mess," an engineer said.

 

"They are building airplanes in the final-assembly process that then have to be rebuilt in the pickup process, which is many times longer."

 

Parts that don't fit, including doors and control surfaces on the wings, still are arriving in Everett.

 

"The wings on the 787s aren't even close to being ready," the engineer said.

 

The employees spoke on condition of anonymity because Boeing doesn't allow them to talk about their work.

 

The latest airplanes rolled out to the flight line from the factory with about 1,600 jobs incomplete.

 

It has been taking on average about a month to complete 1,000 of these catch-up jobs, the 787 mechanic said.

 

"They are just digging the hole deeper every time they send one out with that many jobs on it," he said.

 

Gunter said she didn't have the information to comment on those numbers.

 

Sorting it all out is made much more difficult because of the balky computerized system that manages all the data about specific parts. Mechanics are spending hours trying to call up parts information and drawings before performing any rework or modification.

 

And individual jets have been reworked so often that engineers have a hard time just figuring out what is the particular configuration of parts and assemblies on a particular plane.

 

"Productivity has crashed," said another employee with knowledge of how the computer system is failing.

 

"A worker spends four hours a day on the computer just trying to pull up his work."

 

Boeing's Gunter said the company is working to improve the digital tools, which she admitted "could work better."

 

But she said that, even without that, productivity has been improving. "Our mechanics are doing a great job," she said.

 

Among the major rework that must be done on every jet built so far is the laborious resealing of the wings.

 

That's currently being done on two jets destined for Royal Air Maroc of Morocco, inside an empty bay of the main assembly plant.

 

As the engineer put it, the planes are "essentially getting gutted."

 

The wing seals are important not only to avoid fuel leaks but also to coat metal fasteners so as to prevent sparks inside the fuel tank during a lightning strike.

 

Gunter said Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), which builds the wings in Japan, is not entirely at fault.

 

"The sealing that was done did not meet our expectations," Gunter said. "We worked together with MHI to identify the need for resealing."

 

At the root of the issue, she said, are "elements of both workmanship and design."

 

Nothing new

 

She added that this is "not a new discovery" and already was factored into the last schedule revision in December, which requires the first delivery by the end of September.

 

But first delivery may not matter as much as the smoothing of the production system, said the employee who spoke about the computerized data problems.

 

"They'll make some deliveries," that person said, "But does the assembly line work? Almost no one thinks so."

 

Among several people who work on or with the program, the most optimistic projection was that Boeing might deliver 10 Dreamliners to customers by year end.

 

Others predicted the number would be much smaller.

 

Inside the ATS hangar, Dreamliners Nos. 8 and 9 are being prepared to join the fleet of flight-test planes to speed up the certification process.

 

These jets will fly long flights to try to gain a certification known as ETOPS

[Guest]

1 Doors not fitting beggars belief.

2 The fuel tank sealing would worry me.

3 If I understand US policy correctly, we won't see Mr Obama or his successor flying one of these until it's been in service for 5 years. I'll probably follow the same policy. However, when they get it working, these things will be flying off the line so fast they will gain a lot of market experience very quickly, so I might risk it after 3 years.

[Guest fountainhall]

Don't worry about Boeing they'll do just fine. Their products are much better than competing ones and in the end I'd put my money on Boeing.

I can't help but go back to Thor69's comment earlier in the year. I, too, have been largely a Boeing fan. I have always loved the 747-400. Until I started taking the Emirates A380, the 747 was definitely my long-haul plane of choice. The 777 is fine, and I much prefer the 737 to its slimmer Airbus cousin, the A320. I also don't like the A330s and A340s. Compared to the larger Boeings, they feel cramped to me.

 

But the 747 series is now starting to be phased out by most airlines. That's one problem for Boing. As a result of the recent Southwest incident, the lifespan of the 737 as a short-haul jet may (I stress 'may') be shorter than expected. So that could be another problem. Boeing's hopes are pinned partly on the new 747-800 series with its bigger upper deck and larger wings. So far, this has not attracted many orders, even though it has made its maiden flight and will soon go into production. So that

[Bob]

Khun Khortose and I were chatting about all this mess just a few days ago. We're both big Boeing fans and want to have the company do well (important for the industry, the US, and especially the west coast area of the US).

 

What I don't understand is why some major heads have not rolled over all this. Who the hell thought up the idea of having parts made in multiple countries (some politics versus intelligence there?), who the hell set up the program to make sure that the other countries not only made the parts correctly but that they would fit when they attempted to join them in Seattle, who the hell was in charge to constantly monitor that all this was happening correctly and timely, and who were the bosses in the US who's job it was to monitor all this for the ocmpany and shareholders? There should already have been some major firings over this as it's obvious that a fair amount of bad engineering, bad manufacturing, and bad oversight occurred.

 

And what's sad is we all know that Boeing can do it right (the 777 being a prime example of a superb airplane).

 

But, if they get everything worked out (sounds doubtful in the article posted), I suspect that the new plane will be extremely popular. If it truly will save 20-25% on fuel costs, the 787 will likely be very popular. If not, the engineers who said it would achieve that kind of fuel savings ought to follow the other bumblers out the door.

[Guest fountainhall]

Seems the 787 is soon to enter service. It made it's maiden trans-Pacific flight to Tokyo on Sunday where it will start test flights with the launch customer ANA. The first commercial flights will be on Japan's domestic routes in September or October, according to ANA.

 

http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/dreamliner-arrives-tokyo-503115?hpt=hp_bn10

[Guest]

I'll just carry on letting other customers sample this plane for the first few years:

Landing gear issue

[Guest fountainhall]

Well, let's put it into perspective. Since the LOT 767 belly landing resulted in no injuries, although the plane is surely a write-off a write off, looks like the 787 could have made a similar injury free landing even if the crew had not managed to get the landing gear down. Could even be a way of Boeing selling more planes!

[ChristianPFC]

Strangely, despite having an interest in technology and even visiting air shows (Berlin, Farnborough; Le Bourget this year), I hardly take notice of which plane I am flying with when I travel to Thailand. I consider passenger airplanes (as well as cars and trains) as just a means to get from A to B. As a German, I am in favour of Airbus because a succesful Airbus means jobs and technology in Europe.

[Guest]

I don't mind if it's Airbus or Boeing, as long as it's a proven aircraft and is run by an airline with a good safety record (not Chinese, Air France or any others like that).

 

Having competition between Boeing & Airbus is good for the customer.