787 Program Review (Part One)
Mark Jenks is vice president of 787 Development and took on this position in November 2007.
From June 2003, Jenks was previously leading the 787 Wing, Empennage and Landing Gear Life Cycle Product Team.
While in this role, he led the international team responsible for design, manufacture and delivery of the wing, empennage and landing gear systems for the 787 program. Mark was kind enough to take time out from his schedule to discuss an array of topics on the 787, where it is today, where it’s going and the overall marketplace against a backdrop of economic uncertainty.
Due to the content length, this will be split into three parts. Part two will be published later this week and part three will follow next week.
Gearing Up For First Flight, Finalising Flight Software
Since the first components of the 787 Dreamliner started to arrive in the Everett factory two years ago, the program has been hit by at least four major delays, pushing back first flight and service entry, both of which are tentatively planned for the second quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010 respectively.
From the rework of the first 787 after its premiere, to getting the fastener issues resolved, the 787’s path to first flight has been a tough one. To that end, Boeing’s learning curve from the 787 is one that the company hopes will put into good stead for future models and the eventual ramp up in production.
“There are lessons to be learned and Boeing accepts this. No other large capital component manufacturer has ever attempted what Boeing has done on the 787 on such a wide international partnership basis. It was seen by some as a recipe for disaster but in reality it is only a few segments that have failed. Parts shortages and the ability of component partners to meet the challenge have been a disappointment but were inevitable,” analyst Howard Wheeldon told me earlier last year.
The Third Flight Test 787 (ZA003) In Final Assembly
Overall, working through the last two years has helped Boeing get a better grasp of the production system and is now slowly reaping the rewards as Jenks explains.
“If you take a look at the issues that have really been causing us problems to date, for instance one is the power systems, which is one area that we have been having difficulties with; we are making very good progress. So we basically got the software for the power system required for flight in its final testing and so we’ve got the basic software developed now through the majority of this testing at Hamilton Sunstrand and also in our labs here.
Of course there are areas that everyone has heard a lot about in terms of fasteners and fastener issues which we are getting very close to being completed now. Clearly some of those big issues have been driving the scheduled delays are now close to being “cleaned up” in terms of the rework.
In terms of getting to first flight in the second quarter, those are a couple of the big issues [listed above]. In terms of the rest of the flight test program, it’s a lot about the supply chain and about the units coming in.
We’ve shipped unit five now and the completeness of those units, the condition of the assemblies coming in is much, much improved. The supply chain continues to heal up, which is really critical for the balance of the flight testing and ultimately meeting our production rate and a couple of big issues getting the software into our final integration testing successfully and getting the big quality issues we’ve had to work through in the factory are mostly behind us.”
P.P.P – Pace, Performance & Preparation: Pace Of The Flight Test Program, Performance Improvements & Preparing For The 787-9
Having been fortunate enough to visit ZA001 up-close, while work remains on the airplane in readiness for first flight, efforts to get the remaining five flight test airplanes ready to join the certification program are in full swing. In a recent message to employees, new vice president of the 787 program Scott Fancher highlighted progress on the fifth flight test airplane, which is currently finishing final body join with parts for the sixth airplane “due in Everett in the next several weeks.”
In concert with this, the static test 787 is also ready “to resume testing in support of first flight,” adds Fancher.
Jenks went on to discuss the flight test program and why Boeing believes the planned schedule is more achievable than not.
“Early on we had an even more aggressive flight test program. With the more recent schedule changes, we’ve really moved that flight test program in line with our history [of flight test programs of other Boeing airplanes].
So whereas before we needed to have flight rates that were higher or as high as we’ve ever done in the past, the current schedule is in line with what we’ve demonstrated in the past. Yes, the technology is new, every program has got a suite of new technologies – a lot of what [from a technology perspective] has really been driving the scheduling by rights would drive the schedule aren’t necessarily big flight test drivers so you know, a lot of the things in terms of the new composite structure, the fastener issues – those really aren’t things that would typically be drivers in a flight test program - it’s not the kind of thing that generally drives a flight test program.”
787 Flight Deck, Housed In The Dreamliner Gallery
“So in terms of the risk areas in flight test, a lot of it isn’t necessarily that different than what we would have had before [on previous airplanes]. There are a few things, clearly, where we have taken steps in terms of the more electric architecture for the power system from a technology standpoint, that’s a bigger step, but again for the overall flight test program it’s in line with our history and there really isn’t a reason why we ought to be outside of that [history].
With the issues we’ve had on the [787]-8, all those get addressed on the 787-9. Now there’s elements of them [production issues] that you don’t completely back out necessarily, but the vast majority of the things we’ve seen on the 787-8, we can and will and are addressing on the 787-9. Where we’ve had specific issues, the fastener one is a great example, every bit of that is absolutely “lessons learned” and directly translates into the 787-9 and we won’t do that again - I can say with a lot of certainty!
The [problem area] ones like that that we’ve hit will be fully incorporated into the 787-9 and will not happen again; you “only know what you know”.
The 787-9 is a derivative program and the kinds of things that we’ve experienced are really associated very much with the “first time on a new all composite, more electric airplane” and that’s not a change on the derivatives. The kind of change we’re implementing on the derivatives are the kinds of things we do in general on derivatives – we’re gonna take weight out of the structure where we can. We’re gonna put more weight in where we need it for higher loads for the stretched airplane, these are things that are very familiar to us, so in general, the things we’ve seen now, the timing is such that we can, will and are fixing those as we go into the 787-9 and the other things we’re doing on the 787-9 should not be that unusual for us.
When you look at performance, there are three big drivers – you got the efficiency of the engine, you got the basic aerodynamics of the airplane and also the weight of the airplane. The engines are fortunately are very “backwardly compatible”, so as the engine makers make improvements as they always do, to support the 787-9, so there’ll be engine performance that’ll continue to improve airplane performance whether it’s the 787-8 or 787-9.
There will be improvements in weight that we make on the 787-9 that will be very easy to incorporate back on the 787-8 and in fact a lot of what we’ll do for the 787-9 that’s different, where we’ve got specific ideas where we now know we can take weight out, we will do that for the 787-9 because we’ve got to get the best performance for that airplane as we can and in many cases we’ll use that back for future versions of the 787-8. There are some cases where that doesn’t work but there are cases where it does and it’s fairly straightforward to incorporate those improvements back onto the Dash 8. In fact, we want to do that where we can in terms of commonality, cost and efficiency in building these airplanes. There’s a very strong tie between what we do on the 787-9 and getting the benefits back on the 787-8.”
Factory Floor (R-L) With ZA002, ZA003 & ZA004 Test Airplanes
Stepping Up Production To Eat Into The Backlog
To cut a long story short - no, there’s no immediate plans for a second production line. Jenks explained the rationale and highlighted how the existing infrastructure and supply chain are not yet “fully maximised” to justify the outlay of another line.
“Right now, the single [production] line meets the firm production [estimates] that we have and as we go forward, if we can sell more and we need to look at being able to build more to a higher rate, we’ll have time before we have to make any decisions to see how efficient we can make the line.
Right now it works with our single line, we’ve got time to go figure out how much additional efficiency we can drive in before we would have to make decisions that if we want to go to a higher rate, can we squeeze it in on one line here [in Everett] or have multiple lines and it’s the same situation with the supply base. If there are areas in the [supplier] factories right now and we would want to push them to higher than they can do right now, we have time to get into [higher] production, get the rate up which can really start to exercise the [supply] system and then we ask “how good can we make this, how much can we lean it out” but right now, things are sized to meet with the existing facilities.
There are areas in some of the [supply] factories where they’ll make modifications, relatively minor modifications to their factories to reach to the rates we have already sold to – so for example if they have to knock out a wall and put another machine in, that’s all within the plan.
In terms of us [here at Everett] going to a full second line or a new factory, those are not yet at “lead time” to make those decisions.”
Please check back later this week for the continuation of this article.
22 comments February 23rd, 2009
