by Tracy White » Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:25 pm
Not sure how long this link will work so I'll repost some of the article here. As a comment, Boeing execs got over-exuberant with their outsourcing on the 787 and it's biting them back now.
From
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1196987 ... lenews_wsj
JET BLUES
Boeing Scrambles to Repair
Problems With New Plane
Layers of Outsourcing
Slow 787 Production;
'Hostage to Suppliers'
EVERETT, Wash. -- On Tuesday, Boeing Co. will give Wall Street a progress report on its 787 Dreamliner, as it scrambles to overcome a six-month delay in producing the new jet. A look inside the project reveals that the mess stems from one of its main selling points to investors -- global outsourcing.
When the Chicago aerospace giant set out four years ago to build the fuel-sipping jet, it figured the chief risk lay in perfecting a process to build much of the plane from carbon-fiber plastic instead of aluminum. Boeing focused so hard on getting the science right that it didn't grasp the significance of another big change: The 787 is the first jet in Boeing's 91-year history designed largely by other companies.
::snip::
Today, the Dreamliner is at least six months late, and the goal of delivering 109 planes by the end of 2009 is threatened. Rather than being well into flight tests, Boeing is rushing to get the first planes airborne while it helps suppliers around the world bring their factories up to speed.
::snip::
The missteps underscore the hazards and limits of outsourcing -- especially with a brand-new airplane, the most complex machine in mass production. Lessons that Boeing is learning the hard way could end up helping rival Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. Airbus has said it plans to use a similar model of global suppliers to build a competing plane that should be ready in about five years.
::snip::
The plan calls for suppliers to ship mostly completed fuselage sections, already stuffed with wiring and other systems, to Boeing facilities around Seattle so they could be put together in as few as three days. Existing production methods can keep a plane the size of the Dreamliner in the final-assembly area for a month.
But many of these handpicked suppliers, instead of using their own engineers to do the design work, farmed out this key task to even-smaller companies. Some of those ended up overloading themselves with work from multiple 787 suppliers, Boeing says.
The company says it never intended for its suppliers to outsource key tasks such as engineering, but that the situation seemed manageable at the time. "We tended to say, 'They know how to run their businesses,'" says a Boeing executive familiar with the company's thinking.
"Now Boeing is hostage to the suppliers, and there's very little they can do about it," says Tom Wroblewski, president in the Seattle region for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which was critical of all the outsourcing.
::snip::
Not until the first Dreamliner was unveiled in July did Boeing realize the magnitude of its troubles. In an effort to meet the rollout target for the 787 of 7/8/07, Boeing told suppliers to ship partly completed sections to its final-assembly bay in Everett.
Boeing believed that the first plane's biggest problem was a shortage of specialized nuts and bolts needed to put it together. The industry-wide shortage was worse on the Dreamliner because it required dozens of new fasteners not used on other planes. At the rollout ceremony, thousands of employees and invited guests milled around beneath a Dreamliner that had more than 1,000 temporary fasteners embedded under its shiny coat of Boeing blue and white paint.
When mechanics later opened boxes and crates accompanying the fuselage sections, they found them filled with thousands of brackets, clips, wires and other items that already should have been installed. In some cases, officials say, components came with no paperwork at all, or assembly instructions written in Italian, requiring translation.
Boeing officials thought they could work through this unexpected twist in a couple of weeks. Instead, they had to put the plane up on jacks and remove its engines and tail to get to tight spots.
And there's more, of course.
Not sure how long this link will work so I'll repost some of the article here. As a comment, Boeing execs got over-exuberant with their outsourcing on the 787 and it's biting them back now.
From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119698754167616531.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
[quote]
JET BLUES
Boeing Scrambles to Repair
Problems With New Plane
Layers of Outsourcing
Slow 787 Production;
'Hostage to Suppliers'
EVERETT, Wash. -- On Tuesday, Boeing Co. will give Wall Street a progress report on its 787 Dreamliner, as it scrambles to overcome a six-month delay in producing the new jet. A look inside the project reveals that the mess stems from one of its main selling points to investors -- global outsourcing.
When the Chicago aerospace giant set out four years ago to build the fuel-sipping jet, it figured the chief risk lay in perfecting a process to build much of the plane from carbon-fiber plastic instead of aluminum. Boeing focused so hard on getting the science right that it didn't grasp the significance of another big change: The 787 is the first jet in Boeing's 91-year history designed largely by other companies.
::snip::
Today, the Dreamliner is at least six months late, and the goal of delivering 109 planes by the end of 2009 is threatened. Rather than being well into flight tests, Boeing is rushing to get the first planes airborne while it helps suppliers around the world bring their factories up to speed.
::snip::
The missteps underscore the hazards and limits of outsourcing -- especially with a brand-new airplane, the most complex machine in mass production. Lessons that Boeing is learning the hard way could end up helping rival Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. Airbus has said it plans to use a similar model of global suppliers to build a competing plane that should be ready in about five years.
::snip::
The plan calls for suppliers to ship mostly completed fuselage sections, already stuffed with wiring and other systems, to Boeing facilities around Seattle so they could be put together in as few as three days. Existing production methods can keep a plane the size of the Dreamliner in the final-assembly area for a month.
But many of these handpicked suppliers, instead of using their own engineers to do the design work, farmed out this key task to even-smaller companies. Some of those ended up overloading themselves with work from multiple 787 suppliers, Boeing says.
The company says it never intended for its suppliers to outsource key tasks such as engineering, but that the situation seemed manageable at the time. "We tended to say, 'They know how to run their businesses,'" says a Boeing executive familiar with the company's thinking.
"Now Boeing is hostage to the suppliers, and there's very little they can do about it," says Tom Wroblewski, president in the Seattle region for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which was critical of all the outsourcing.
::snip::
Not until the first Dreamliner was unveiled in July did Boeing realize the magnitude of its troubles. In an effort to meet the rollout target for the 787 of 7/8/07, Boeing told suppliers to ship partly completed sections to its final-assembly bay in Everett.
Boeing believed that the first plane's biggest problem was a shortage of specialized nuts and bolts needed to put it together. The industry-wide shortage was worse on the Dreamliner because it required dozens of new fasteners not used on other planes. At the rollout ceremony, thousands of employees and invited guests milled around beneath a Dreamliner that had more than 1,000 temporary fasteners embedded under its shiny coat of Boeing blue and white paint.
When mechanics later opened boxes and crates accompanying the fuselage sections, they found them filled with thousands of brackets, clips, wires and other items that already should have been installed. In some cases, officials say, components came with no paperwork at all, or assembly instructions written in Italian, requiring translation.
Boeing officials thought they could work through this unexpected twist in a couple of weeks. Instead, they had to put the plane up on jacks and remove its engines and tail to get to tight spots.[/quote]
And there's more, of course.