Made in Renton

In fact the SST full scale mockup was built at Renton. But with the demise of the SST and the slowing of aircraft orders in the early ’70s the decision was made to merge the 737 into the 727 line.

Many jets bound for Australia and New Zealand have also flowed from its production lines.

Boeing 727s and 737s in the colours of Ansett-ANA, Ansett, Trans-Australia Airlines, Australian Airlines, Qantas, Virgin Blue, Pacific Blue, Virgin Australia, NAC and Air New Zealand plus 707s for Qantas, have come from Renton, not to mention the RAAF’s BBJ and Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft and the RNZAF’s 727s and 757s.

Putting Renton production into context, between 1958 and 2000 McDonnell Douglas only produced 3,640 narrow and widebody jets at its Long Beach plants.

Now Boeing is ramping up its 737 line to build an unprecedented 52 a month. Right now the rate is 42 and that will increase to 47 in 2017 and 52 a year later.

Renton, which encompasses 380,902m2, traces its history back to WW2 where it was used to build 1,119 B-29 Superfortress bombers in just two and half years – and a single XPBB-1 Sea Ranger.

According to Boeing historian Mike Lombardi the company built the XPBB-1 Sea Ranger, which was an experimental reconnaissance flying boat for the US Navy, but it was cancelled to make way for B-29 for the US Army Air Force.

At the height of B-29 production, Renton produced five a day over four production lines.

Renton was then closed after the war but Boeing reopened it in 1948 to build 943 C-97 Stratofreighters for the US Air Force.

But it has been the 737 that has been the mainstay of Renton production.

While not the glamorous leader of the Boeing stable like the 787 or 777, the 737 is still a complex aircraft.

Employees take 367,000 parts, an equal number of bolts, rivets and other fasteners and 58 kilometres of electrical wire then put them all together to form an aircraft.

Renton’s latest challenge is bring the new 737 MAX into its production system Says Boeing 737 business operation director Beth Schryer, the 737 team of 12,000 is “very excited” about bringing the MAX into production this year.

“By November (2015) we will be close to rolling out the first MAX. ” And the industry is excited as the 737 MAX will deliver a 14 per cent fuel saving over the current NGs and 20 per cent over the original NG models.

The gains are extraordinary from a variant considering many new designs are put into production for a 15 per cent efficiency gain.

First to fly will be the MAX 8 in 2016 with deliveries a year later.

To handle the transition to the MAX and cope with overall demand Boeing will add a third 737 assembly line at Renton which will be dedicated to the MAX.

Schryer explained to Australian media that, to start, the thirdMAX line would be moving much slower than the other two lines – where 737s take nine days to move through the factory.

But she was coy on ramp-up details for the MAX saying “it’s not something we share and it’s part of our recipe on how we can successfully bring this product online so quickly. ” Preparations for the MAX ramp-up involve removing the delivery, processing and storage of BFE such as galleys and seats from the final assembly area and relocating to a new building, adding a 7th position to assembly Line 2 and expanding the capacity to build wings.

The changes also included syncing production Lines 1 and 2, while in 2015 Boeing will start the third temporary line adjacent to Line 1, for the MAX.

Boeing is mum on details of the production rate for the MAX line, but the longer term plan is to integrate the MAX into the two NG lines as sales of the NG give way to the MAX. And there is scope if needed to keep the temporary line and even to use the nearby P-8 Poseidon line.

Certainly Boeing seems unfazed by the challenge of quickly ramping up MAX production because of the massive experience it has gained from lean production which started in 2000. That program reduced the numbers of days required to build a 737 from 22 in the late 1990s to just nine today.

And that program and the relocating of engineers back to assembly halls started as a thought bubble after a major earthquake.

Carolyn Corvi, then vice president and general manager of 737/757 programs was searching for a way to break away from the traditional Boeing culture that kept engineers and office workers separated from the mechanics and manufacturing

Boeing seems unfazed by the challenge of quickly ramping up MAX production.

employees who build the aircraft.

The question was how to implement a major cultural change and revolutionise the aircraft production process.

Responding to a 6. 8 magnitude earthquake which hit Renton and almost flattened the building housing 1,400 Boeing 737 engineers, Corvi seized the opportunity to make an economic case for not just relocating employees but to initiate a whole new way of working within her organisation.

“There was always a huge gap between the people who design the product and those who build it on the factory floor,” Corvi told US-based BarclayDean Project Management.

However, Corvi explained that “the plant was a no-go zone for some engineers” proud of their hard-earned white-collar status.

But her message at the time was simple: “Everyone’s got to be focused on the airplane and you can’t be if you’re in an office a quarter of a mile away. ” So the decision was made to move the engineers into vacant warehouse space in the 737 plant, an idea that became known as the “Move to the Lake. ” “It started out as an idea about a facilities change. It quickly turned into an opportunity for all of our people to work together to continuously improve and trust one another to get the work done,” Corvi told BarclayDean.

Of course, the lean philosophy dates back to the 1950s, when the Toyota Motor Company in Japan pioneered a revolutionary way of producing cars. According to Boeing’s Frontiers magazine, Toyota production executive Taiichi Ohno developed an integrated process that efficiently managed equipment, materials and its workforce throughout the production cycle.

Shunning the mass auto production techniques of Detroit, Toyota managed to deliver more reliable, higher-quality products faster – and at a lower cost – while responding more nimbly to customer demand.

The concept caught on in the US in the 1980s and ’90s.

In the early 1990s Boeing executives travelled to Japan, where they studied concepts that would become known as lean – just-in-time delivery, error-free production, and continuous flow.

According to Frontiers, Boeing brought in consultants from Shingijutsu Co who were former Toyota executives, to help guide the process.

And the results have been extraordinary with a newfound “connectedness” between employees and the aircraft, earlier and better problem solving, a higher sense of urgency to improve, and a greater satisfaction when planes go out the door.

There was a production gain of 50 per cent, a floorspace reduction of 40 per cent, and a cultural shift to on-site teamwork and persistent communication – all of which have enabled the current 42 a month production rate.

To see Renton is to see a well-oiled aircraft production machine.