BB, in that second pict. are those ANA 787's?

 

They are Boeing's in ANA paint. My understanding was there were a number of empannage structures which were so non conforming that Boeing has not current plans to repair the airframes. I had heard numbers as high as 40 were in various states of post production modification.

It is a mess; as Boeing thought there was an advantage to shifting production to overseas contractors who enjoy "relaxed" oversight or who themselves obtain components with no oversight has turned into a nightmare of very expensive parts which do not conform with the design requirements.

To a lesser degree, South Carolina's cheap labor workforce, isn't. Boeing had stated their production rate would be 10 to 14 jets per month (in various statements). Actual rate of production ... 3.

I'm not sure how much Boeing thinks they are saving on labor, but the costs of nonconformity are over a billion now. Stonecipher came from Douglas. Boeing is now being run with the same level of anti labor animosity that Douglas had ... save a dime, spend a dollar to fix the problem post production.

Meanwhile at Ford, former Boeing CEO Mulally (and father of the highly profitable 777) has developed a terrific product line and is hiring both blue and white collar Americans to keep up with demands for their products.

 

Air Wisconsin. Biggest regional airline of the 1980's. Pioneered the domestic code share arrangement as a UNITED carrier, flying BAE 146's.

 

Wow. I knew they had delays from all the oversea's outsourcing but I'd not heard about the SC issues too.

"You get what you pay for"

I guess it holds true, even for Boeing.

 

In 2001 as Boeing began to think about outsourcing, a Boeing Engineer pointed out; "“it is necessary for the prime contractor to provide on-site quality, supplier-management, and sometimes technical support. If this is not done, the performance of the prime manufacturer can never exceed the capabilities of the least proficient of the suppliers. These costs do not vanish merely because the work itself is out-of-sight.” - Dr. L J Hart - Smith

Boeing did not plan to provide for such on-site support for its suppliers.

If this sounds a lot like a MD screw up, where costs were cut until the problems were discovered by the operators (ne' MD11) it is the same pattern. Underspend on development and over pay for fixing it on the ramp.

The SC issues started when aft fuselage barrels were outsourced to Vought, who did not have a single aerospace engineer on staff. They had a couple of PE's. The fuselage barrels were built to the wrong dimensions and were unusable. Vought blamed Alenia in Italy for supplying incorrect sub assemblies. Alenia is also involved in the "abandoned" 787's which apparently assembled despite some of the inner structures being shipped incomplete from Italy. Now those structures are inaccessible for repair. Boeing had to buy the facility and take over production themselves to ensure compliance with the design specs.

Harpers reported Boeing's design budget for the 787 was 5 Billion. It has over run that figure by 12 Billion. I don't know how many 787's they must sell to break even. eh - correction- over 32 Billion and counting ....

 

Credit Seattle Post Intelligence

In a June analysis, David Strauss, of UBS, wrote that even if Boeing manages to get costs down as fast as it did on its previous all-new plane, the 777, the manufacturing cost for years will vastly exceed the revenue coming in.

"We see 787 burning $4 billion in cash on average annually through 2015," Strauss wrote.

He figures Boeing's outlays for building the jets will swell from $16 billion now to $35 billion by 2019 before cash flow on the program becomes positive.

It could take 1,900 planes before Boeing recovers those costs, Strauss estimated. Only after that would it begin recouping the $15 billion in development expenses.

Using a much more optimistic alternative assumption on how fast Boeing could get its costs down, Strauss reckons Boeing could break even after 1,100 deliveries. An analysis by Doug Harned, of Bernstein Research, came up with a similar number.

"You probably don't have another airplane program where you produce 1,000 units and you didn't have a penny of profit," said analyst Pilarski. "Over a decade, you don't even make a penny."

Can the program ever make it into profit?

Eventually, sometime in the 2020s, well after the first 1,000 deliveries, Boeing would hope to be making 20 percent margins per airplane — an estimated profit of about $23 million per 787 jet, based on the average value of the various Dreamliner models. It would take an additional 650 deliveries or so at that optimal return to recover the $15 billion in one-time development expenses.

Yet the senior engineer puts his faith in the dramatic leaps in productivity and cost-cutting that Boeing has made on the 737 and 777 programs.

 

Why are these abandoned? Just the battery issues? What doesn't conform?

 

c'mon, man.

 

That's some funny stuff right there. Made me laugh out loud, at an airport gate, waiting for my flight.

GJ

 

It IS surprising Boeing went as far as to paint them .... one would figure Boeing would have realized much sooner in the process that structural parts were missing and donated them to museums, or trade schools.

Wonder if it wasn't until the fastener issue was discovered that they learned bonded structural members were absent? Or maybe Boeing figures they will eventually engineer mods and finish them.

Some of the ANA airplanes in use are flying with structural reinforcements which of course add weight.