Posted on 06/27/2006 9:15:38 AM PDT by skeptoid
NAGOYA, Japan -- For Boeing's Everett engineers working on the company's first all-new commercial jetliner in more than a decade, the dream begins here.s
In this Japanese industrial city far from The Boeing Co.'s Puget Sound roots, in a factory built just for the 787 Dreamliner, Fuji Heavy Industries has completed the first large composite section that will go on the first 787 to fly next year.
Measuring 17.4 feet long by 19 feet wide, the composite structure is the lower skin of the center wing box, a critical section of the jet where the 787 wings will be attached. The wing box also serves as the center fuel tank.
Piece by monstrous piece, Boeing and its partners are building an airplane in an entirely new way that circles the globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlepi.nwsource.com ...
How many went to Spirit and aren't those people much more productive than the 'Boeing' workers they replaced? I'm thinking of the 11 day 737 assembly time vs the 20-some days it used to be.
It's not about the cost of the parts. It's about sharing the action in order to sell them.
LOL! Your first flame job on FR? :) I'd give it about a 7 on the richter myself.
Either way - the difference between selling planes and not selling planes has a direct impact on how many people Boeing can employ.
But you're right that an important part of the deals to supply parts for the planes is to give those countries a vested interest in Boeing's sales.
Boeing hit its production peak in 1997/98, when it was delivering more than 600 total aircraft a year (more than 50 a month). Of which about 12 747s per month. Current capacity is approximately 6 per month, which they are producing like only 1 or so per month...almost all being freighter configurations.
It is not about costs of the fabrication. If anything, for example, Japan will be more expensive to fabricate the wings and wingboxes than for U.S. to do it inhouse.
It is about surrendering the technology and the business to the foreign countries as the "price of entry" to realize sales of finished product to their markets. As already pointed out with the experience of England, it is usually a foolish "bargain," that simply ends your own manufacturing, and leaves you an also-ran.
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