The announcement of the 50% acquisition of Global Aeronautica in Charleston is a powerful step forward in regaining oversight and management of key sections of the 787 supply chain.
By taking the reins at Global Aeronautica along side Alenia, Boeing is now significantly better positioned to finish assembly of the remaining test aircraft center fuselages and look ahead to a robust production ramp up. Assumption of control of the Global Aeronautica facility solves several key problems that had plagued the Charleston facility.
First, ensuring that communication is maintained with respect to the status of airframe assembly will enable production schedules to be optimized to best utilize resources across the global supply chain.
Second, the sharing of control at Global Aeronautica allows for direct line-of-sight management of the supply chain. Part shortages can be best managed and solved by ensuring that parts are ordered to the appropriate level of need and shared across the whole of the supply chain.
Third, as Boeing establishes a permanent presence in Charleston, the proximity to Vought, who will still fabricate and assembly aft Sections 47 and 48 next door to Global Aeronautica, permits for additional oversight, guidance and consultation as the supply chain matures.
Lastly, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chairman, Scott Carson was asked by Seattle Times reporter Dominic Gates back in October what he, "might have done differently" in Charleston. Carson replied, "I think, if there's a lesson learned, it might be you'd start earlier and you'd do a little more training, perhaps, with our people there, helping them learn the production process."
By assuming a 50% stake in Global Aeronautica, the issues of aerospace manufacturing expertise and training amongst the staff can be directly addressed.
Friday's announcement enables Boeing to engage more fully on a host of issues that have challenged the 787 program in Charleston.
The importance of Global Aeronautica in the 787 supply chain can not be understated. It was the only location in the global network of suppliers that was responsible for the integration of such significant structural portions of the aircraft. As an integrator of major structural components from Italy and Japan, the role of the facility mirrored, on a smaller scale, the exact work that takes place in Everett for 787 final assembly.
In closing, the announcement has potentially far reaching consequences that go well beyond the 787 Dreamliner program.
This is the first expansion of Boeing’s manufacturing infrastructure in over a decade. Scaling back infrastructure has long been a hallmark of the Aerospace giant. Halting of commercial assembly in Long Beach and the sale of Wichita to form Spirit Aerosystems has demonstrated a propensity for consolidation rather than expansion. Rightly, Boeing has sought to do more with less. The 50% acquisition announcement marks a first expansion of Boeing’s manufacturing capability since the merger with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. In addition, with the pending future expansion of the Northrop Grumman/EADS facility in Mobile, AL to build KC-45A and A330-200F, Boeing has turned lemons into lemonade by providing a foot hold in the growing southern aerospace base.
Unequivocally, this is a net positive for the 787 program both in the short and long term. Boeing identified a tactical problem and found a strategic solution to address it. Boeing is now able to directly tackle issues of supply chain management and integration challenges, rather than the insufficient over-the-shoulder oversight that, according to sources in Charleston, was a hallmark of the previous year.
Boeing and the 787 Dreamliner program are well served by this decision.
Image Credit Brad Nettles/The Charleston Post and Courier
on March 31, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply
Jon, I am a little disappointed. You start sounding a wee bit like a Boeing salesman.
Boeing took the reins over both Alenia's and Vought's 787 fabrication divisions when they implanted Boeing VPs as general managers there.
What if Boeing just took Charleston as barter for bailing out Vought with cash? What else would Vought have had to offer in return?
Boeing may - and I think they will - sell of their share at some point in time when 787 production is running smoothly.
Boeing identified a strategic problem and found a tactical solution to address it.
on March 31, 2008 4:58 PM | Reply
Thanks for another update Jon :)
Jon: Do you know what the new facility next to the GA facility is? (the one to the right)
I've been looking at pictures of the production facility Vought built. It seems as the clean room, which can be found in the left-most one of the three large rectangles the building has (the little building connected to the left side of the main building contains the autoclave) is mostly filled up by the two tape laying machines (one for section 47 and one for section 48.)
Just to compare this facility with one of the other: Spirit built a facility that can hold another three tape laying machines.
It would be interesting to know what capacity Vought had in mind when they designed this facility.
on April 1, 2008 5:04 AM | Reply
To be pedantic, some of Boeing's Australian manufacturing capability (i.e. Hawker de Havilland) was acquired later than the McDonnell Douglas merger.
on April 1, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply
The real question is not what Scott Carson would have done differently. It is why did Boeing make the decision in the first place not to intensely supervise these suppliers? The need to do this was so obvious that even Harry Stonecipher ought to have seen it. How in the world could Boeing have left to Alena and Vought both design and fabrication of major parts of the 787's revolutionary fuselage without that supervision? Or, even worse, why did Boeing let them design something that new and radical in the first place? It is obvious, and not in hindsight, that at the very least Boeing should never have outsourced the design and construction of the fuselage. It should have designed it and done intial pilot production in house and then chosen the best partner to out source production to. Boeing's incomprehensible failure to do this is the real story here, one which enteprising aviation journalists should follow to find out how and who made these stupid decisions.
Another thread of this story is: Was Boeing being intentionally misleading to the public and investors when it (primarilly thru Mike Baer) repeatedly said that it had anticipated possible problems with its partners and had teams of experts ready to assist them as needed. These statements created the false impression that Boeing was in fact aware of what was going on with their suppliers and stood ready at a moment's notice to step in to help so that they could meet their production deadlines.
It has turned out that this impression could not have been further from the truth for zillions of reasons, including most spectacularly the fact according to Baer in a speech given after he was removed from command of the 787 that the first fuselage was delivered to Boeing needing 30,000 parts instead of the 1200 Boeing anticiapted.
on April 1, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply
The real question is not what Scott Carson would have done differently. It is why did Boeing make the decision in the first place not to intensely supervise these suppliers? The need to do this was so obvious that even Harry Stonecipher ought to have seen it. How in the world could Boeing have left to Alena and Vought both design and fabrication of major parts of the 787's revolutionary fuselage without that supervision? Or, even worse, why did Boeing let them design something that new and radical in the first place? It is obvious, and not in hindsight, that at the very least Boeing should never have outsourced the design and construction of the fuselage. It should have designed it and done intial pilot production in house and then chosen the best partner to out source production to. Boeing's incomprehensible failure to do this is the real story here, one which enteprising aviation journalists should follow to find out how and who made these stupid decisions.
Another thread of this story is: Was Boeing being intentionally misleading to the public and investors when it (primarilly thru Mike Baer) repeatedly said that it had anticipated possible problems with its partners and had teams of experts ready to assist them as needed. These statements created the false impression that Boeing was in fact aware of what was going on with their suppliers and stood ready at a moment's notice to step in to help so that they could meet their production deadlines.
It has turned out that this impression could not have been further from the truth for zillions of reasons, including most spectacularly the fact according to Baer in a speech given after he was removed from command of the 787 that the first fuselage was delivered to Boeing needing 30,000 parts instead of the 1200 Boeing anticiapted.