First of two parts detailing the 787 operations of Spirit AeroSystems - MORE PHOTOSAt Spirit AeroSystems Wichita, Kansas facility, 31 737 Next Generation aircraft speed out of the factory on railcars bound for Boeing's final assembly line in Renton, WA. It's a noisy atmosphere amid the industrial symphony of highly coordinated operations. A quick glance at a calendar suggests that the 31 per month rate means one narrowbody aircraft manufactured per day, but with just 21 manufacturing days in a month, Spirit produces almost 1.5 737 fuselages each day, up from a maximum rate of 21 per month achieved on the 737 classic.
At that rate, Boeing and Spirit churn out enough 737s per year to completely replace the fleets of Southwest Airlines and Ryanair, the two biggest 737 customers, in just 24 months.
Spirit has earned a great deal of experience in building effectively to a high rate of production, but each 737 that leaves Wichita represents only the structure of the aircraft. A few blocks south Spirit is undertaking its most ambitious project yet, fabrication and integration of the forward fuselage (Section 41) of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.
Along with this 21-foot long section, Spirit is responsible for delivering the pylons and fixed leading and trailing edges of the 787's composite wings.
To date, Boeing has taken delivery of 10 flying forward fuselages, plus two test barrels for the static and fatigue airframe, as well as another - designated ZY901 - that quietly made its way to Everett in November 2007 for additional testing. Of those 10 delivered, six are for the flight test program, four are production standard. Another sixteen barrels are in various stages of completion in Wichita.
Spirit's formidable challenges are the meticulous creation of each composite barrel it fabricates while simultaneously managing its role as a Boeing top-tier supplier and handling its own supply chain that feeds the parts destined for integration inside each forward fuselage.Right now, Spirit is operating at about 10% of its 2013 target of 10 787s per month. Spirit CEO Jeff Turner recently conceded that with Boeing pulling from its supply base about once a month it is not exactly a regular production flow for his company.
"What we really need to get productivity is a production drumbeat," says Turner, speaking at a September investor conference.
The pace of that drumbeat will build quickly if Boeing and its partners are able to overcome the nearly crippling challenges of the last two years.
Turner says that it is costing his company between $10-15 million per month to keep the 787 running at this low rate as it prepares to begin ramping up in 2010. So far, the company has wound 26 barrels, the most recent one to avoid passing the expiration date of the composite tape it has in storage.
Spirit, Turner says, has the floor space to meet 10 a month on 787, and now with the company's new dual-headed automated fiber placement machine, Spirit can wind at least seven barrels per month as the rate rises.
As the company works toward managing the ramp up, there are two supply chains to Spirit. The first is directly managed by Spirit, and the second, known as Partner Managed Inventory (PMI), is managed by Boeing has been a source of trouble. Spirit's interaction with PMI suppliers is limited to dictating the need and timing of deliveries.
Heading into 2010, Boeing is expects to begin ramping its 787 production rate in preparation for first delivery, now targeted for the end of next year. As the rate increases, each partner will have to improve productivity, delivering the same level of completion at an ever increasing pace.
"Right now," says Turner. "We have all kinds of plans, all kinds of ideas of what we can do to improve productivity...I like to say it is like a snow skier. You can have all kinds of plans for going down the hill, but until you are moving, you can't execute them and you can't change course and those sorts of things.
"As soon as we get this production line moving, a lot of the plans we have today will come true. Some of them we'll say, well, that that isn't going to work and new ones are going to emerge. And that is what we really need on the program is some momentum so that we can make the improvements. We have tons of ideas."
INSIDE THE SOUTH HANGAR
The man leading the team to implement those ideas is Harold Leslie, Spirit's senior manager for 787 systems integration. The task laid out for him is stark: With 21 manufacturing days in a month, one 787 Dreamliner will be need to be delivered to Boeing every two days at full rate, an unprecedented rate for a wide-body aircraft.
"Ten a month doesn't scare me," Leslie says confidently while standing underneath blue and yellow tooling that surrounds 787 forward fuselages inside Spirit's South Hangar. On this day in early September, four forward fuselages belonging to Airplanes 10, 11, 12 and 13 are being worked on simultaneously.
Airplane 10, the first fully painted forward fuselage, was about to be wrapped in plastic in the shipping area for its flight aboard the Dreamlifter to Everett.
Airplanes 11 through 13 were parked at three stations inside the systems integration room. Spirit can work on up to four 787s simultaneously here, with an additional pre-loading station for the passenger floor structure and a fifth station for final shakedown before shipping.
Airplane 11 was going through final quality assurance shakedown while 12 was preparing for population of its flight deck.
Airplane 13 represents a subtle yet significant milestone for the 787 program toward achieving long sought stability.
When Boeing first contracted with Spirit and other structural partners, the first set of production aircraft, seven through 12, would purposefully be built to the same configuration. This was done, Leslie says, to find stability in repetition before introducing further changes to the design at the partner level.
Yet as Boeing has struggled with control and oversight of its supply chain, it has also sought to bring stability to the design of the 787 across all partners. As the last two years of the 787 program have progressed, so has the design of the aircraft. With that stability contractually built into the first six production 787s, Boeing has taken on much of the implementation of design changes in the form of traveled work done in final assembly in Everett.
As a result, Spirit's fuselages, which had been delivered with 100% completion of assembly according to the original configuration since Airplane 4 in August 2008, had a portion of that statement of work arrive in Everett only to be torn out and replaced to bring the design into the latest level of design conformity.
Design changes are normal for the early phases of a commercial aircraft program, says Leslie. "Just not to this level," he quickly adds. The scale and scope of many of the changes have involved time consuming negotiations across the global supply chain as to when those changes would be incorporated.
The wiring of the 787 provides a prime example. The first production 787, ZA100, had its wiring removed shortly after sections were delivered to Everett in May and June of this year. Rumors flew that incorrect wiring definition prescribed by Boeing resulted in the supplier shipping the wrong bundles, but in fact it was part of a normal design change for Airplanes Seven (ZA100) through Twelve.
The wiring change, known across the 787 supply chain as NC5 or Net Change 5, is a consolidation of design changes spread across the program all rolled together in a minor blockpoint change that puts all the first tier partners on the same page.
Starting with Airplane 13, NC5 mainly focuses on incorporating a redesigned wiring standard that eliminated issues with spacing and consolidated bundles across aircraft in an effort to save weight. Six bundles were eliminated with the latest NC5 revision, which also resolved issues with the distance of some wires from power feeders and other cables, says Leslie. He added that cables in the original configuration were picking up signals jumping from wire to wire. The consolidation of bundles was relatively limited on NC5, because the ring posts that affix each bundle to the structure has a limit of three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
Boeing says that the original wiring definition - not the NC5 standard - will fly on ZA001 when it makes its maiden flight later this year. Boeing adds that the original wiring definition has been cleared for flight.
With the consolidation and rearrangement of the NC5 wiring, the bundles are now significantly more organized. The visual differences before and after the revision are noticeable, even to the untrained eye. The pre-NC5 standard bore a resemblance to a tangled series of highway access ramps and interchanges, all with a clear destination, but often difficult to follow. The NC5 standard looks more like a straight-ahead multi-lane superhighway.
Leslie says the changes are a lot neater and improve the maintainability, access and integration of the wiring system. Before NC5, the passenger floor structure would be installed in the barrel without being populated with any wiring or ducting. Integration crews would then go into each barrel making the installation of wiring and ducting a significantly more time consuming task. Starting with Airplane 13, the passenger floor was installed with pre-routed wiring and ducting cutting integration time.
The passenger floor represents a "critical path" task for integrating the rest of the forward fuselage, says Leslie. The floor structure provides access to the upper crown of the barrel to continue systems installation, including the flight deck.
Starting with Airplane 21, those wiring bundles, along with other ducting, will arrive already pre-routed on the passenger floor structure. This structure is built by Stellex Aerostructures, a wholly owned subsidiary of GKN, in Wellington, Kansas, a quick trip down Interstate 35. In addition, by Airplane 26, the E1 and E2 electronics racks made by Arnprior Aerospace are expected to be fully populated with avionics boxes and wiring for ease of installation.
Boeing's woes with the 787 supply chain forced the phased-in completion of parts, though Leslie notes that it was not part of the original build plan for 787. Ideally, the floor grid and electronics racks would arrive fully stuffed with all the necessary equipment, expediting integration from day one.
"It's what we always intended to do," he says.
CHANGE IS THE ONLY CERTAINTY
Looming in the background of all of the production preparation across the supply chain is the fact that 787 has yet to even fly. Many suppliers are in a wait-and-see mode as they anticipate further required changes that have historically always resulted from flight-testing.
Put simply, this is a known unknown.
Of NC5, "We anticipate that being the last major wiring change, we hope," says Buck Buchanan, Spirit's chief operating officer with a playful laugh. "Then [Boeing] is going to go into flight test," he adds. "There's always change that comes out of flight test, what that change is nobody knows."
This reality is not far from Harold Leslie's mind as well.
With Spirit producing production standard ship sets, crews have started discreet testing of the aircraft systems to identify and eliminate any issues that could disrupt final assembly and testing in Everett. Spirit completed nose gear swings starting on Airplane 7 and has continued those tests on each ship set before delivery using an external hydraulic cart.Spirit's testing on the early production ship sets has been limited to testing the turbulent flow on the hydraulic system, the environmental control system and gear swings. Spirit will wait to do full power-on testing with activation of the flight deck screens until the aircraft system software is service ready. Leslie says that should happen in the near future, pending the elimination of some bugs in the electrical system software that he says will be worked out after first flight.
"No one wants to invest a whole lot of money now, if you have to redo a big part after first flight," he says. "Flight test will drive out all those little issues. Going from red label [flight test standard] to black label [service ready] is just a function of what differs from anticipated."
Part two will be published September 25, 2009
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