Dreamliner is causing nightmares for Boeing

Dreamliner is causing nightmares for Boeing
The innovative plane is two years behind schedule and billions over budget.

A 787 Dreamliner at Boeing's assembly plant in Everett, Wash., in January. Boeing said delays are the inevitable result of developing a new aircraft with a new manufacturing method. The company is optimistic that once it works out the kinks, it will be successful.

When Boeing Co. unveiled plans to build the 787 Dreamliner, the aircraft was touted as revolutionary, a major technological shift in the way a plane is made and in the way it operates.

But revolutions rarely come without a struggle.

The 787 is now more than two years behind schedule and by some estimates is costing Boeing $4 billion more to develop than planned. The troubled jetliner has also set back other Boeing projects, analysts say, and has left some suppliers financially strapped.

One major supplier, Vought Aircraft Industries Inc., initially projected it would spend $250 million for tools and machinery to make parts for the aircraft. By July, costs had ballooned to $600 million. The company this summer sold the 787 fuselage assembly operations to Boeing.

"Financial demands of the 787 program were beyond what the company's balance sheet could support," said Lynne Warne, a Vought spokeswoman.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dreamliner15-2009oct15,0,795664.story?track=rss

to paying double for the work they have had to do over. An employee at the Everett plant told me they are flying in all the planes (inside 747's) because the skin has to be redone. An Italian company could not get it right.
Also heard they had problems with parts made in China.
There is something to be said about keeping the "institutional memory" that includes dedication to quality work in the existing Boeing plants.