5/3/2023 0 Comments Flightgear boeing 787![]() A car has roughly 15,000-20,000 parts a plane has more than 2,000,000 parts. The problem is one of communications, he argues, and complexity. "We have been outsourcing since the industrial revolution," he said. Things get outsourced then they have to come back to Boeing to get fixed," he said.ĭr Amar Gupta, dean of Pace University in New York, has studied the construction of the Dreamliner and is not convinced that outsourcing itself is the issue. ![]() You have seen a plethora of problems at Boeing. "Outsourcing in general lengthens supply lines, creates problems with language and culture and is extremely hard to coordinate. Unions blame the company's reliance on outsourcing.īill Dugovich, communications director at SPEEA, the professional aerospace union, said his members had first voiced their concerns in 2002. All new projects, especially ones as ambitious as the Dreamliner, face teething issues but the 787's woes continued to mount. The company ended up buying some suppliers, to take their business back in house. Many aircraft had to have their tails extensively reworked. Shims used to bridge small parts weren't attached correctly. Outsourcing parts led to three years of delays. The wing tips were made in Korea, the cabin lighting in Germany, cargo doors in Sweden, escape slides in New Jersey, landing gear in France. But these were exacerbated by Boeing's decision to massively increase the percentage of parts it sourced from outside contractors. The technological leap was always likely to cause teething issues. More radically still, pneumatic and hydraulic systems have been ditched for electric systems. The Dreamliner is made of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic composite. The 787 was pitched as the airline of the future – a revolutionary plane that that would use new technology to bring aircraft design into the 21st century. Boeing's local newspaper, The Seattle Times, puts the eventual cost of the plane's development at $32bn. The first planes were delivered to Nippon Airways in 2011, years late and billions over budget. They are a lesson in the limits of outsourcing and the all too cosy relationships between regulator and regulated that have caused problems across industries from automotive to food and financial services in recent years.īoeing started work on what would become the Dreamliner in the late 1990s. The company will need all its considerable political clout in Washington to speed through a resolution from regulators who are already facing allegations that they fast-tracked the troubled aircraft in the first place.īut the Dreamliner's problems are not just a Boeing issue. Such problems have led to a global grounding of the aircraft, including all US-registered 787s, and a wide-ranging Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigation, the first time in four decades that it has pursued such drastic action.īoeing's chief executive, Jim McNerney, expressed "deep regret" for the debacle and said the company was "working round the clock" to restore faith in the aircraft. Boeing's battery woes are the latest in a series of problems to have beset the Dreamliner.
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