Seattle Post-Intelligencer(29-06-2006)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/275715_charleston29.html
New 787 plants a boon for economy
By JAMES WALLACE
Starting next year, much bigger cargo planes, modified 747s known as Large
Cargo Freighters, will fly out of the same airport and head for Everett.
They will carry much of the composite fuselage of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.
"The best job in Charleston is going to be the popcorn stand vendor when
those LCFs start flying and all the school kids come out to watch," said
C.P. "Newt" Newton, vice president and general manager of Global Aeronautica,
a joint venture between the Italian company Alenia and Texas-based Vought
Aircraft Industries.
Vought and Alenia will build more than 60 percent of the 787 fuselage.
Two new plants about 200 yards apart have been built for production and assembly
of 787 fuselage sections. The land is adjacent to what serves as a joint
Air Force base and Charleston's civilian airport.
"We are at the 2-yard line and ready to cross that goal line and score a
touchdown," said Mark Dickey, general manager of the Vought production plant.
The first fuselage sections are scheduled to leave the Charleston airport
for Everett on the Large Cargo Freighter early in the second quarter of 2007,
Newton said. First flight of the 787 will be later that year, possibly August
or September, with All Nippon Airways of Japan taking delivery of the first
plane in May 2008.
First for industry
The 787 represents a technological leap over today's jetliners. It will be
the industry's first large commercial jetliner with a composite fuselage
-- almost the entire airframe is made of carbon fiber. It will be much more
fuel efficient than current jets.
Boeing's manufacturing plan for the Dreamliner is just as revolutionary.
It calls for Boeing's partners in Italy, Japan, South Carolina and in Wichita,
Kan., to supply large completed structures that will be joined together during
final assembly of the plane in the Everett plant. This will reduce the time
required in final assembly and make for a more efficient production system,
according to Boeing.
"The 787 represents the innovation of our industry," said Vincenzo Caiazo,
chief operating officer of Alenia's North American subsidiary.
Even Boeing's supply chain is part of the 787 innovation march, he said.
The 50-50 partnership between Alenia and Vought, he said, represents a new
business model in an industry where the two companies are usually fierce
competitors.
"It is a novel relationship. Global Aeronautica will be remembered as a pioneer
in the aerospace arena."
Scott Strode, vice president of 787 program development, said the initial
batch of 787s will probably spend about a month in final assembly. As lessons
are learned and as production rates are increased, Boeing should be able
to get that down to about six days, he said. The goal would be to one day
cut that in half, to no more than three days in final assembly.
Boeing's 777 requires about 18 days in final assembly today -- and that kind
of production efficiency has come only after some 500 planes have been delivered
since 1995.
"We still think we can eventually get it down to three days," Strode said
of the 787 assembly time.
Fuselage assembly
Vought will manufacture the aft fuselage -- two sections totaling about 38
feet in length that will be flown to Everett as one piece.
Alenia will make two center fuselage sections in Italy -- one just aft of
the wing and the crown section that goes above the wing. Those two sections
will be flown to Charleston to be mated in the Global Aeronautica plant with
two sections manufactured in Nagoya, Japan, by Fuji and Kawasaki heavy industries.
Fuji will make the center wing box and Kawasaki a fuselage section just in
front of the wing, as well as the main landing gear wheel well that attaches
to the Fuji wing box.
When the Italian and Japanese elements are connected in Charleston, the fuselage
assembly that is flown to Everett will be 84 feet long and 18 feet in diameter.
Alenia also is manufacturing in Italy the 787 horizontal stabilizer on the
tail. It will arrive in Charleston with the two Alenia sections before being
flown to Everett, probably on the same plane that carries the Vought-made
aft fuselage.
The composite wings, from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will be flown from
Nagoya to Everett. The forward fuselage, including the nose and cockpit,
will be supplied by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita. Spirit acquired Boeing's
commercial operations in Wichita last year.
All these large pieces of the Dreamliner will be flown to Everett on the
modified 747s, which have a bulging upper fuselage and are being modified
in Taiwan. Boeing will use three of the cargo planes to transport the Dreamliner
assemblies and may need more, depending on the ultimate production rate that
is still being decided.
The Large Cargo Freighter will become a familiar sight around the Seattle
area later this summer when flight testing of the first plane gets under
way at Boeing Field.
Charleston plant
In Charleston, the Vought production plant is a just-completed 342,000-square-foot
building on 240 acres of what a year ago was forest next to the airport.
Both it and the Global Aeronautica plant were built to withstand a Category
5 hurricane or a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.
Manufacturing of the Vought composite sections will be done in a 70,000-square-foot
"clean room" by an automatic fiber placement machine. Robotic arms will apply
layers of composite material to a contoured tool surface.
A traditional aluminum fuselage would require many pieces of metal held together
by thousands of rivets and fasteners. For the 787 fuselage, large one-piece
composite barrels will be produced.
From the clean room the fuselage sections will be moved into an autoclave
for curing. It measures 30 feet in diameter and is 75 feet long -- the world's
largest autoclave by volume, according to Vought.
"This is essentially a boiler, just like a steamship," Newton said of the
autoclave, which cooks the composite material under a pressure of about 195
pounds per square inch and a temperature of more than 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Two 700 horsepower fans circulate the hot air in the autoclave.
The curing process will take eight to 10 hours.
Windows and doors will be cut out of the fuselage sections and an ultrasonic
machine will send sound waves through the composite layers to make sure there
were no manufacturing flaws.
Finally, Vought workers will "stuff" the fuselage sections with wiring, systems
and electronics.
Workers in the Global Aeronautics building will do the same thing with the
fuselage sections from Japan and Italy. As much as possible, this kind of
work will be completed here, not in Everett.
Plants provide 700 jobs
For the first seven planes, the two Vought fuselage sections will be joined
in the Vought plant. After that, they will be joined in the Global Aeronautica
plant.
At 350,000 square feet, the Global Aeronautica plant is about the same size
as the Vought building.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford said recently the $560 million complex is
the second-largest single industrial investment in the state since BMW built
an auto plant here in the early 1990s.
The state needs these kinds of jobs. An article this month in The Economist
magazine painted an unflattering picture of South Carolina, a state with
one of the nation's highest unemployment rates that ranks near the bottom
of the 50 states in per capita income and SAT scores.
The two plants eventually will hire 700 or more workers. The average wage
will be about $50,000, though that includes management jobs. That's a very
good wage for the Charleston area, whose main industry is tourism.
About 50 people work at the Vought plant now. That will increase to about
100 by the end of the year and peak at around 375 in 2011.
Employment at the Global plant will eventually peak at about 400. Fewer than
50 work there now.
Workers for both plants will be trained at a local technical college as well
as on the site. The training center next to the Global plant even has a working
miniature autoclave. The basic training program takes about 12 weeks.
About six months ago, the companies held a jobs fair in Charleston. They
expected 600 people might show up. More than 3,000 came. Job applications
were gone within 45 minutes.
BUILDING THE DREAMLINER
In new factories in Japan, Italy and South Carolina, production is about
to begin on The Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner. Boeing recently took a dozen
journalists on a tour of the global factories where the composite wings and
fuselage of the Dreamliner will be manufactured.
Tuesday: At factories in Japan, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner begins to take shape,
representing a new way of building planes.
Wednesday: Europe is considered Airbus country. But on land that used to
be a grove of olive trees in Italy, a new plant will soon be building large
sections of Boeing's 787.
Thursday: In Charleston, S.C., the fuselage gets assembled before heading
to Boeing's Everett plant.