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richelieu · Messaggio da **richelieu** » 22 giugno 2010, 23:40

Da qui escono i giganti del cielo .....

Fonte: Aviation Week and Space Technology

Boeing Does $800-Million Everett Makeover

By Michael Mecham
Everett, Wash. (Jun 11, 2010)

When Boeing opened a 42-acre factory here for its 747 in 1968, the Guinness Book of World Records ranked it as the planet’s biggest building by volume. As the company’s widebody jet stable expanded, the factory’s roofline spread across nearly 100 acres (9.9 hectares/4.3 million sq. ft./399,000 sq. meters). However measured, the building retains its top Guinness billing. And yet, inside its walls space can be at a premium.

Space constraint is one big reason why the company has undertaken a more than $800-million overhaul to ensure every square foot is used efficiently. Some improvements relate to energy conservation and the environmental impact of the activities within the huge building. A large portion of the effort has been aimed at allowing the 30,000 employees to work more collaboratively and safely.

The push on collaboration underscores a major thrust to improve efficiency of the four widebody airplane manufacturing operations here. The current phase toward that end will continue into 2012.

One way to look at what Boeing is gaining by improving its processes is that four airplanes are now being built in a factory footprint originally set out for three.

There are nearly two dozen other buildings here connected to the main factory, which is divided into 16 “buildings,” or bays, under the same roof. Their activities encompass propulsion systems preparation, painting and sealing, and small-parts buildup. But it is on the final assembly lines where Boeing has achieved its most noticeable lean manufacturing improvements. (In contrast, Airbus uses a different approach in Toulouse, where airplanes are assembled in separate buildings.)

Everett’s revitalization began in 2005-06 as pretty much a two-part process—a “Future Factory” project to improve collaboration and working conditions for employees, and the continuing evolution of assembly lines here. The latter began long before the company decided to locate a second 787 final assembly line in Charleston, S.C. Had Boeing’s board of directors voted to keep all 787 work in Everett, it would have made no difference to the overhaul here because space was available to accommodate either a surge or a second line.

Everett’s widebody factory sits on the north side of Route 526. South of the highway is Paine Field, where completed aircraft are towed for testing and delivery to customers. The seeds for the makeover were sown in the late 1990s when the drive for lean manufacturing efficiencies resulted in the “Move to the Lake” project at the Renton facility, south of Seattle (AW&amp;ST July 19, 2004, p. 144).

Move to the Lake was a downsizing project; it shifted workers in buildings sprawled across valuable real estate (much of it now sold off) to a central location. This was accomplished by rethinking every element of the narrowbody 737 production line. Part of what this transition did was to make Renton an easier place for people to work. It brought everyone involved in making the jets closer to the center of the action—the assembly line. Time and motion processes on the factory floor were revised. And the simple act of situating engineers and managers a quick elevator ride away from the assembly line allows a faster resolution of production issues than if they had to hike to the line from distant buildings. In hindsight, the efficiencies of this close-knit team approach seem obvious. But they became so only after they were enacted.

The move carried some risk. After all, Boeing was messing with the production of its most successful jet. But the company saw the chance to make an outdated, inefficient assembly line “smarter” by eliminating wasted motion and speeding up processes. Within two years, production flow times had been cut in half.

Since then, a second 737 assembly line has been added to keep up with commercial demand, along with a third to handle military contracts.

Improvements north of Seattle at the bigger Everett site—the largest of any Boeing program—were a matter of evolution. The plant had to make way for one new program, the 787; improve the manufacturing efficiency of the high-volume 777; ready itself for the transition of the low-volume 747 into its third generation, and adjust for what might be the twilight years of another older program, the 767. And in doing the latter, it had to remain flexible enough to boost production rates should the company prevail in the U.S. Air Force’s KC-X tanker competition.

“As you go along through time, you keep finding new opportunities” for efficiencies, says site leader and Boeing Vice President Larry Loftis. “Future Factory was very much modeled from what was the Move to the Lake in our Renton facility.” As a former director of 737 and 757 operations, Renton’s transition was familiar ground to him.

Loftis lives with one of the results of Future Factory when he wears his other hat at Everett as general manager of the 777 program. Rather than overseeing the project from a remote office, he and his engineering team work from a five-story office tower within the factory. Their glass-walled offices overlook the big widebodies’ U-shaped moving assembly line.

That atmosphere prevails in all the programs here, except for the 787. Still in development, the program has its management and engineering team in Everett’s 40-88 towers headquarters building. But once the airplane passes certification and initial delivery milestones, its engineers and managers will be downsized as people move on to new projects; the core team will transition inside the factory, too.

Everett’s factory changes are not being applied uniformly across 747s, 767s, 777s and 787s. Each aircraft has its own legacy and lives with the budget constraints of its own market. So the 866 orders in backlog for the 787 drive a quite different manufacturing urgency than the 56 for the 767.

Some differences pertain to size and scale. The newest version of the airplane Everett was built for, the 747-8, comes with a new wing, a fuselage stretched to 250 ft., (making it the industry’s longest jet) along with new engines and systems.

When its manufacturing plan was under development in 2006, managers emphasized that they did not want 747-8 production to become “an event.” Translated, that means the new jet’s projected sales rate will not be large enough to justify a major remake of its production line. Everyone was mindful that an airplane so big is difficult to maneuver in a factory. Still, Boeing did want to improve the -8’s production efficiency, so two overhead cranes were added to lift its heavier wing and fuselage, and feeder-line techniques continue to be improve. These contributed to better production flows than on its predecessor, the 747-400, in the 1990s.

The jet’s Section 44 lower fuselage lobe, wing and horizontal stabilizers are built up in the 40-21 bay, then transferred by overhead crane to the wing-and-body join and final assembly line in 40-22. There, fuselage sections are added after wing/body join. Initially, the aircraft is tugged straight ahead until it can roll on its own landing gear. Then it is pulled into one of two slanted positions for completion of assembly (AW&amp;ST March 1, p. 42). The 747’s fuselage length precludes employing the nose-to-tail assembly process initiated with the 737.

While 747 assembly stays put, things are moving around elsewhere in the factory, starting with the 767, Boeing’s original mid-sized twin-aisle jet. At mid-decade, it was on its way out. But a surge in demand by airlines needing a quick fix for shortages for regional international routes, along with the prospect of winning the KC-X competition, saved it.

Its final body join is now completed in the 40-24 “multi-modal bay,” meaning that it shares space with 777 and 787 production-line spillover activities. By February 2011, 767 work will be shifted to 40-32, one of the half-size bays on the factory’s north side. The move to 40-32 signals a shift to a nose-to-tail assembly line. The wing buildup will continue to be done next door in half-size bay 40-33.

The Everett factory is bisected by an east-west transportation alley separating 40-32 and the other north-side bays from the larger assembly areas. The north-side bays measure 600 X 400 ft.—though some are smaller—while the south side’s final assembly bays are 1,000 X 400 ft. All are 87 ft. high. (By comparison, the Building 88-30 being constructed for the 787 in North Charleston will measure 610 X 460 ft. and feature 75-ft.-wide, five-story office towers above the assembly floor—an echo of Everett and Renton.)

The north side has never hosted a final assembly line, so the move to 40-32 brings with it the need to build a 240 X 80-ft. hangar door to roll out completed aircraft. Though that sounds large, it is not when compared to the six doors facing Route 526, which sport iconic airplane murals. Four of the early-generation bays measure 300 X 81 ft.—about the size of a U.S. regulation football field. Two others, for the 40-25 and 40-26 bays, were added later and, at 350 ft., are even wider.

One other task will be necessary to welcome 767 final assembly to the north side. There is enough room to tow it alongside the building, but not to turn it at the end. So Boeing will slice the corner off its 40-54 propulsion systems building. Fortunately, leaning out the propulsion process has provided the sacrificial space.

Current 767 demand justifies a leisurely pace of building one aircraft per month. But should Boeing prevail in the $35-billion KC-X competition against EADS’ Airbus A330, that pace will pick up. Loftis says one 767 line will simultaneously handle military and commercial work. To accomplish this, Boeing will borrow some ideas from Renton, where military versions of the 737-800 are manufactured for the U.S. Navy’s P-8A maritime patrol aircraft program.

Wing buildup for 767 tankers will flow in the same fashion as wings for P-8As. But fuselage work will follow a different path. In Renton, the 737 fuselages come from Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan., and are pulled off to a separate assembly line for the P-8A in order to meet provisions of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Everett builds up the 767 fuselages. “We will put the tanker in the same bay and flow line” as commercial airplanes, says Loftis. Although military versions will receive basic modifications on this line—one visible difference is they lack passenger windows—any “secret” installations will be reserved for the Wichita factory after basic assembly is completed here. Wichita specializes in military programs.

This plan means requirements at Everett’s 40-32 bays need not be as strict as Wichita’s. But, they will be ITAR-compliant. Among other restrictions, non-U.S. citizens will not have access.

How commercial and military programs sort out in the mix of daily 767 production will depend on how the commercial volume holds up. By 2011, the 787 should be flowing to customers, and demand for the 767 is likely to trail off. Still, there could be some overlap in building commercial and KC-X airframes, Loftis says.

The 40-25 and 40-26 bays were built when the factory was expanded in the 1990s to accommodate the 777. At the time, Boeing expected it would need both to meet a production rate of seven aircraft per month. But process improvements allowed one bay to suffice.

However, the success of Renton’s 737 moving-line concept prompted a re-examination of the 777 manufacturing process (AW&amp;ST Feb. 14, 2005, p. 60). With regular production underway in 40-26, a pulsing-line, nose-to-tail approach for the 777 was fashioned in the unused 40-25. In 2006, the switch was made.

The 777 line moves at a barely perceptible 1.6 in./min. The idea of a “moving” line is largely psychological—creating a sense of urgency to keep the production pace flowing. The original 777 final assembly used the older, slanted assembly configuration of the 747 and 767. But with a newer nose-to-tail approach, the 40-25 assembly line has cut 10 days off the production cycle of a decade ago, reducing it to 16 days. Total factory build time, from the first spar load to the completed airplane’s roll out, is about 53 days.

With bays 40-26 free, Boeing had room for final assembly of its newest widebody—787—without having to expand the plant. Improved manufacturing processes in the past decade have meant smaller footprints for new programs.

With the ultimate load wing test for the 787 behind it, the program’s ZY997 static test article is heading into its final schedule in the 40-23 bay and should see its last work next year. That space will then be claimed for a 777 completion station for customer-requested outfittings.

Such work is now done in 40-24, which is destined to become the 787 surge line in 2012. Both the added capacity in Everett and at North Charleston’s 787 factory are set to go live in the same year. If so, Boeing will actually have three 787 final assembly lines, although it is not yet clear at what point the surge line will be activated. North Charleston’s capacity is being added to ensure a production rate of at least 10 787s per month.

All will be capable of assembling the three 787 models in any order, including the standard-size 787-8, stretched 787-9 and the shortened 787-3. The latter is a theoretical airplane since it has lost its only customer. However, Boeing has not officially killed it yet. Had the company elected to keep all 787 production here, 40-24 would have accommodated it, but there would be no surge line.

With pre-assembled major assemblies flowing into Everett, the 787’s final assembly line was distinguished by a few simple tools spread over four nose-to-tail stations. In the early days, large amounts of completion work traveled to Everett from 787 suppliers and the dream of simple-tool, open-floor final assembly met the reality of beefed-up scaffolding as workers struggled to push the airplanes through production. Boeing has not given up on its initial factory concept, but people familiar with the program expect it to be refined with new tools when the second line opens in North Charleston.

The amount of people employed at Everett constitutes a decent-sized city. Future Factory was aimed at “creating new, open and desirable work areas in the main factory building to enhance collaboration, improve the employee experience and support overall production efficiencies,” says a description on Boeing’s web site.

In practice, the effort has been put into effect in multiple ways. Bays are color-coded and improved signage is in place. Cafes were added or renovated and given whimsical names by employees, such as Dreamliner Diner and Twin-Aisle Cafe. Workspace was converted for conference and customer meeting areas. A dry cleaner, AT&amp;T phone center, notary service and a computer clinic that employees can access for personal business are all on-site.

Some improvements have an inside-Seattle flavor. Starbucks may be the city’s leading coffee export, but rival Tulley’s was invited to install three cafes to satisfy this big crowd’s caffeine cravings.

Outside the factory, Boeing has designated separate driving lanes for delivery trucks and employees, cutting down on fender-benders. Shuttle buses bring workers in from parking lots to cut down on pedestrian traffic around the factory’s busy portals. The company estimates that 84 million commuter miles have been eliminated through the use of alternative programs.

The Everett enhancements flowed over to Paine Field, where four aircraft stalls were added to accommodate the aircraft-development push from the combined 787 and 747-8 programs. Everett now has 29 aircraft stalls.

Loftis is the third manager to oversee the Everett upgrades, following Dan Becker and Russ Bogue. Some of their major pushes involved environmental and energy-saving improvements. One of the biggest changes was the installation of 35 25 X-27-ft. skylights. Loftis says this old-fashioned addition helps cut the energy bill because many adjacent lights can be doused during daylight hours.

Future Factory also has cut 2,000 tons (700 truckloads) of solid waste annually, recycled 6,400 tons of solid waste (2,100 truckloads) and reduced Everett’s electricity usage by 3 million kw.

http://www.aviationweek.com/media/image ... erett.html

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richelieu · Messaggio da **richelieu** » 25 giugno 2010, 20:58

Rettifica .....

Correction

Factory Acreage Was Off

Fonte: Aviation Week & Space Technology - Jun 28 , 2010 , p. 18

The size of Boeing’s factory in Everett, Wash., was misstated in the June 14/21 issue.
It is 39.8 hectares (98.35 acres), according to the company.

richelieu · Messaggio da **richelieu** » 27 giugno 2010, 8:10

..... When Boeing opened a 42-acre factory here for its 747 in 1968 .....

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