Boeing to spread 777 design work

Boeing has announced that they are going to spread the design work for the 777-X among several sites. Much of the work will take place at the new Charleston facility, with work also being done at the Missile Defense Center in Huntsville, the C-17 facility at Long Beach (which closes soon), the cargo rotorcraft facility in Philiadelphia, the fighter and weapons facility in St. Louis, and Russian engineers at the Moscow facility.

Part of the decision is based on the sheer size of the program. They are also a bit gunshy about production after the outside production problems with the 787 program. They have yet to decide if the aircraft will be produced at Everett, where the -200LR and -300ER are produced, or if they'll use another facility.

Boeing today announced that many of the component details for the 777X aircraft family will be designed by the company’s engineers located outside the Puget Sound region of Washington state.

Continuing a trend of distributing design work on new commercial aircraft, “much of the detailed design” on the 777X will be done at Boeing’s new factory in Charleston, South Carolina, and several sites normally associated with the company’s defence programmes, Boeing says.

The list of 777X design teams includes Boeing’s missile defence centre in Huntsville, Alabama, the soon-to-be-shuttered C-17 site in Long Beach, California, the cargo rotorcraft factory in Philadelphia and the fighter and weapons production complex in St. Louis, Missouri.

Russian engineers at the Boeing Design Center in Moscow also will participate in the 777X detailed design, Boeing says.

www.flightglobal.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58

Yes, this can be done successfully with the right planning, configuration management controls, and project/program management.
For 787 high-lift system (all wing actuation) the company I work for spent $750,000 a month on the detail design stage for 4 months...the A350 high-lift system for $900,000 a month actual cost a year later.

The big fubar part was Contracts signed-on way too low a price ship-set per plane...$785,280 received on $785,000 fixed cost per ship-set.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I wonder if this was a preventative measure in some way against crippling Boeing labor strikes of the future.

reply to post by Sammamishman


It could be. It also would let the work go faster, as each team only concentrates on their area, instead of trying to do the entire aircraft in one location.

Figured I'd throw this in here since it's related. Rumor has Boeing in negotiations with at least four airlines, for a total of 255 aircraft, worth $87B.

The order would reportedly (it's unconfirmed at this point), 100-150 for Emirates, 50 for Qatar, 30 for Etihad, and 25 for Cathay Pacific. It's believed Emirates will be the launch customer.

Emirates announced that they will have an announcement about a large aircraft order at the Dubai airshow coming up next month.

www.bloomberg.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58


Are these orders for the 777 or a mix of aircraft?

reply to post by Sammamishman


These are just 777X aircraft.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Good news for my region's economy.

reply to post by Sammamishman


It's going to be interesting to see where they decide to build it. Because right now they build the 777s in Everett, but they also assemble the 737 in Seattle, and they're talking about increasing 737 production by a lot when the MAX goes into production.

They've been talking about increasing the Charleston production, so they may build at least some of them there.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Yah, it will be interesting. I see Boeing duel driver delivery trucks like the one in the attached vid. almost every day on its way to the Renton 737 plant. These trucks are getting to be like Prius's, every time you merge on the freeway there one is.
www.youtube.com...

reply to post by Sammamishman


The one that I saw didn't have the covers over the spars, which is how I knew what they were.

As for the back driver, not only no, but HELL NO.

reply to post by Zaphod58


What's the use of the back driver? What is this setup called?

reply to post by C0bzz


It allows them to turn much tighter than normal because he's turning the back of the trailer while the front is turning. I have no idea what they call it, it's not that common.

reply to post by C0bzz


They also need to turn the back separately from the front because the trailers are much longer than a normal trailer.

reply to post by Zaphod58


WA Gov. Jay Inslee made an announcement yesterday about a tentative deal with Boeing to keep most of the major assembly for the 777-x in WA (wings, fuselage section and final assembly).
Of course there are always strings attached when it comes to Boeing holding carrots in front of the WA legislature. The deal is dependent on the machinist Union signing off on the deal and continued infrastructure improvements in the Puget Sound region...oh and the usual tax breaks to Boeing.
Over all this is good for WA, as it means 10's of thousands of jobs kept and added to the region.

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