787 Repair Problems

[FAS]

Vi riporto una notizia relativa al 787 in inglese.
Per eventuali traduzioni parziali contattemi con libertá....

JET BLUES
Boeing Scrambles to Repair
Problems With New Plane
Layers of Outsourcing
Slow 787 Production;
'Hostage to Suppliers'
By J. LYNN LUNSFORD
December 7, 2007; Page A1
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.
To lower the $10 billion or so it would cost to develop the plane solo, Boeing authorized a team of parts suppliers to design and build major sections of the craft, which it planned to snap together at its Seattle-area factory. But outsourcing so much responsibility has turned out to be far more difficult than anticipated.
The supplier problems ranged from language barriers to snafus that erupted when some contractors themselves outsourced chunks of work. An Italian company struggled for months to gain approval to build a fuselage factory on the site of an ancient olive grove. The first Dreamliner to show up at Boeing's factory was missing tens of thousands of parts, Boeing said.
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.
Boeing has said the delays have affected 19 of the 52 airlines that have ordered the 787, some of which were counting on using their planes during the 2008 Summer Olympics. If delays mount, the company could face millions of dollars in penalty payments to customers, as well as pressure from suppliers, many of which have agreed not to be paid until planes get delivered.
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.
Boeing overestimated the ability of suppliers to handle tasks that its own designers and engineers know how to do almost intuitively after decades of building jets. Program managers thought they had adequate oversight of suppliers but learned later that the company was in the dark when it came to many under-the-radar details.
"In addition to oversight, you need insight into what's actually going on in those factories," says Scott Carson, the president of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes unit. "Had we had adequate insight, we could have helped our suppliers understand the challenges."


A few days later, they replaced Mike Bair, the visionary executive who had been in charge of the program from its early days. His successor is Pat Shanahan, an intense detail-man with a reputation for pulling troubled programs out of the fire. Mr. Shanahan is expected to give his first update on the status of the program on Tuesday.
Mr. Bair, who remains at Boeing, caused a stir a short time later when he gave a speech to a Seattle business council that touched on the lessons Boeing had learned. He suggested that some suppliers had stumbled so badly that "some of these guys we won't use again" on future programs.
His frank assessment didn't sit well with Boeing and its suppliers, considering that the company has agreements with most of them that extend through the 30-year-plus life of the program. Boeing noted that Mr. Bair also "strongly emphasized the company's overall belief in the 787 Dreamliner's global production model."
Nevertheless, Mr. Bair gave a revealing description of the disarray on the factory floor when he said the Dreamliner's final-assembly process had been designed to bring together about 1,200 components. Instead, he said, the first airplane had come to the factory in 30,000 pieces. Boeing declined to make Mr. Bair available for an interview.
Although the company says it is confident it can deliver 109 Dreamliners by the end of 2009, some suppliers are skeptical. Boeing's plans call for 14 airplanes to be completed by the end of June 2008. In the following six months, it wants suppliers to crank out an additional 42 planes. Even under the best of circumstances, a ramp-up of this magnitude is daunting, all involved agree.
"From where we stand, it's still chaos," says an executive at one major supplier.
Boeing's Mr. Carson says company officials believe it is possible to meet the goal. "We did not conjure that schedule in a vacuum in Seattle, we did it in conjunction with our suppliers," he says. He adds that Mr. Shanahan is identifying the threats to the production schedule and working to resolve them.
Rejecting the idea that Boeing might be better off increasing production more slowly, Mr. Carson says, "I couldn't stand the pain of telling a customer it's going to be worse for them, just to make my life easier."

[Maxx]

Le estremità alari del 787 sono davvero così???????

[FAS]

Le estremità alari del 787 sono davvero così???????

no!
molto peggio





é giusto un disegno draft...

[tristar]

Le estremità alari del 787 sono davvero così???????

no!
molto peggio








.....figurati gli airbus

ciao!