Seven-late-seven

Two years ago, Boeing was basking in the glow of the 787’s sales success. Orders were flowing at an unprecedented rate while Airbus was reeling from the tremendous production delays on the A380 program, not to mention a public tongue lashing over the A350’s design shortfalls from the world’s most influential aircraft buyer, International Lease Finance Corp. CEO Steven Udvar Hazy.

Boeing executives hyped the 787’s revolutionary business model in which a globalised list of supplier-partners would deliver fully-stuffed wing and fuselage assembles to Everett for a simple plug-n-play final assembly.

Then Commercial Airplanes President Alan Mulally even boasted that it would take longer to paint a 787 – five days – than to assemble it, which would be done in just three days.

That confidence was on full display at the 787’s rollout in July 2007 and the bluest skies were indeed in Seattle.

Eighteen months on and after the fifth delay was announced on December 11, the aviation world is shell shocked that a company that had boasted a near prefect record of meeting delivery and performance guarantees is grappling to get its 787 out of the hangar doors let alone fly.

The length of the delays has been well documented in this magazine which has broken several of the delay stories but what possibly has not been considered is the enormity of the task that Boeing undertook.

The 787 incorporates more new technology than any civil aircraft before it; Composite fuselage; no bleed engines; all electric systems such as brakes, new manufacturing processes, radically different design and supply chain structure and responsibilities and the list goes on.

And while the “blame game” for the 787’s might be played for years, David Hess, president of major Dreamliner systems supplier Hamilton Sundstrand says quite simply: “We’re all late.” Speaking to ATWOnline in June, Hess conceded “there were technical challenges that both we and Boeing didn’t fully appreciate.”

However Hess said that technical problems were not really the major cause of program delays. “The steeper learning curve is on the supply chain side,” he said in June. Hess also noted at the time that suppliers had a lot more rigorous and robust supply chain processes than two years before. Part of the learning curve is that whereas previously HS would have shipped all the parts to Boeing, 90% of the 787 components go to Tier 1 structural suppliers such as Alenia.

Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group concurs. “Problem is that instead of one learning curve for the manufacturer, there are probably ten learning curves with the various Tier 1 suppliers and they’re all different and the program is only as strong as the weakest curve – and there have been some really weak curves.”

“The steeper learning curve is on the supply chain side.”

But he is upbeat on the 787’s performance and sees the aircraft’s first flight as a critical milestone in restoring credibility for Boeing. “Nothing has chipped away at customer confidence in the 787 itself.” Nonetheless, the production travails of the 787 have given Boeing “a serious black eye,” says Aboulafia. “People will remember this.”