New Delay for Dreamliner

New delay for Dreamliner
By Kyle Stock (Contact)
The Post and Courier
Thursday, January 17, 2008

Boeing Co. delayed takeoff of its new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet by another three months Wednesday, blaming its contractors at assembly plants worldwide.

The revised plan calls for the plane to take its first test flight in late June, roughly nine months later than originally planned.

The problem, in recent weeks, has been Boeing's partners, not a shortage of parts, according to Pat Shanahan, general manager of the 787 program.

"If there's anything that we've learned in the last few weeks, it was that we underestimated how much time it would take to complete someone else's work," Shanahan said. "I'd rather not point to any one partner in particular."

"We're not going to give information about specific partners," she said. "We're working with every partner. They all have different issues."

Boeing said that the delay in getting the highly touted, all-composite jet airborne will push back deliveries next year. Analysts estimated that the company will face millions of dollars in penalty payments from customers.

The delay could also burn up some of the competitive edge the aerospace giant has over Airbus, a European manufacturer rushing to build an analogous jet with similar technology.

In developing the 787, Boeing took a major departure from traditional manufacturing methods when it ditched the old-fashioned in-house supply-chain and farmed out large segments of the assembly work to contractors worldwide. Roughly 60% of the 787 fuselage is being made and modified by two suppliers in North Charleston: Dallas-based Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. and Global Aeronautica, a joint venture between Vought and Alenia Aeronautica of Italy.

"The bottom line is they made an unprecedented bold move in changing the way that they are building airplanes," said Bob Faith, the former South Carolina commerce secretary who led the charge to lure Vought and Alenia to North Charleston in 2004.

However, the global assembly line, combined with a shortage of key parts like fasteners, has hamstrung the massive project from the start. In October, Boeing pushed back its first delivery date from

May 2008 to November or December. At the same time, it brought in a number of new managers and dispatched teams of its own engineers to streamline operations in North Charleston and at other plants worldwide.

In October, Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said there was no "fundamental flaw" in its Charleston plant but said Boeing could have been more involved in training employees here.

BusinessWeek reported Wednesday that one of the "critical bottlenecks appears to be Global Aeronautica," which could not be reached for comment. Citing unidentified sources, the magazine said the company "has found it difficult to replicate the assembly process in a way that can meet Boeing's need to ramp up production by 2009."

Faith said he did not think the production delays, which are common when launching a brand new airplane, would hinder the state's ability to attract other aviation manufacturers.

"This is going to continue to be a shining star in our economic-development cap for a long time to come," said Faith, who runs a Charleston-based real estate investment firm.

Reach Kyle Stock at 937-5763 or kstock@postandcourier.com.