Boeing's 787 Encounters Flight Delays

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Boeing engineers and production workers are racing against time. They need to complete bundles of unfinished work that has traveled to Boeing's final assembly plant. There, teams of mechanics are swarming over airplane No. 1 to finish the work that should have been completed in the factories of structural partners Vought, Alenia Aeronautica, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Fuji Heavy Industries. Boeing engineers also are trying to match the documentation that is required for every part of the work that has been completed. "The documentation of work completed didn't match with what has been shipped," Bair says. "It's taken some extra time."

Suppliers Play Catch-Up

The unavailability of permanent fasteners for the first airplane has also contributed to the delay, Boeing execs said. To stitch the airplane together for the much publicized roll out in July (BusinessWeek.com, 7/9/07), mechanics had to install tens of thousands of temporary fasteners. Those fasteners then had to be taken out and replaced with permanent ones. But the shortage of specialized permanent fasteners, particularly for the wing, has slowed the process. Bair now says mechanics have about 700 permanent fasteners still to replace in the first 787. But he says the worst of the fastener shortage is behind them.

These assembly glitches have forced Boeing to reshuffle the assembly sequence in order to give the suppliers time to catch up. Dreamliner No. 3, which is slated for the structural fatigue test, will jump in front of Dreamliner No. 2, which is now set to arrive at Boeing's Everett plant in October. The Federal Aviation Administration requires a fatigue test, which stresses the crafts structure to the breaking point. The major partners have fallen behind in stuffing their fuselage sections with the wiring and electronic systems. The goal is for the suppliers to have their sections stuffed and finished when they are shipped to final assembly.

Reshuffling the production schedule will give suppliers time to catch up and reduce the amount of unfinished work that is "traveling" from their factories to Boeing's final assembly plant. Suppliers expect to be behind on at least the first 20 aircraft and should be caught up after that. He admitted that the amount of uncompleted "traveled" work surprised everyone. "We really didn't have a handle on it," he said.

The other surprise was the unexpected delay in completing the coding for the flight-control software, which has been the responsibility of Honeywell International (HON). Bair said challenges there will not require a redesign of the flight control system. Rather, he said Boeing and Honeywell "misestimated" the amount of time it would take to complete the coding of the flight-control laws. "It's not a technical issue," he said. "It's basic coding of flight-control laws that we ironed out from the 777."

24/7 Testing Schedule

The setbacks raise the question of whether Boeing can complete the flight-test program in the abbreviated time frame and still make its first delivery on schedule. Typically, airline manufacturers pay huge financial penalties to their airline customers if they miss their delivery schedule. Bair says Boeing will make up the difference by flying the test planes more frequently than in past flight-test programs. Boeing should have four of the six flight-test airplanes in the sky by January, Bair said, which should be soon enough to fly the required hours to meet FAA certification of the 787 airframe and the Rolls-Royce engines. Two additional Dreamliners, equipped with General Electric (GE) engines, will be used to certify the GE aircraft engines.

Can Boeing deliver on time? Bair said the company intends to do so. During the 777 flight testing, Boeing flew 70 to 80 hours a month per airplane. The Dreamliners will be flying 120 hours per month per airplane. "We'll be running like an airline—24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "We're still convinced we can get through the flight-test program in a compressed amount of time."

Holmes is a correspondent in BusinessWeek's Seattle bureau .