Boeing is advancing toward full-activation of what it sees as a second 787 factory at its Everett, Washington facility, one designed to incorporate the aircraft’s final certified configuration into dozens of Dreamliners already built, in a methodical move to convert billions of dollars of production inventory into cash for itself and its supplier partners and revenue generating aircraft for its customers.
By mid-year, Boeing will occupy all five bays inside Aviation Technical Services’ (ATS) Hangar Three, the largest of three buildings operated by the Paine Field-based maintenance, repair and overhaul provider.
The scale of the ATS operation comes as another in a series of industrial expansions for a program whose footprint looks significantly different from the one the company envisioned when it first was established.
Additionally, the $12.9 billion in 787 inventory that the company ended 2010 with continues to grow at a rate of approximately $500 million per month, according to its full-year earnings report, underscoring the massive costs already invested in the program and spread across 35 saleable aircraft in Everett and those aft and center fuselages in process in South Carolina, as aircraft arrive at final assembly at a rate of two per month.
Few details about the company’s plans for the ramping up modification work at ATS are officially confirmed, though in a recent interview Pat Shanahan, Boeing vice president of airplane programs acknowledged the growing scope of the MRO provider for its 787 modification plans:
“We’ll have two separate factories,” he says, adding “So its really like we have…a primary assembly facility and a mod facility in Everett, so it’s not like we’re going to have a bunch of people out on the flight line moving part by part into the airplane.”
Boeing’s new general in the fight for deliverable 787s is Tim Coyle, who was responsible for integrating Vought and Global Aeronautica into Boeing South Carolina, now home to the second 787 final assembly line.
Once fully activated in late June, say those same sources, Boeing will operate five slant bays at ATS, east to west numerically designated one through five. Eventually each bay will be designated with a unique task, focusing on structures, wiring, systems, interiors, finishing and aqueous wash and aircraft closeout, with a three shift staff expected to be more than 1,200.
Speaking generally, Shanahan says “we’re coming up with new approaches to get those airplanes that have to go through change incorporation on the 87, to even do it more quickly.”
Declining to confirm the details of the ATS expansion, Boeing says, “We currently have four airplanes at the ATS facility. The space at ATS is being used for modifications and completions of early-production 787s. Our plan is flexible and will accomodate our production needs as we complete flight test and prepare airplanes for delivery.”
Shanahan says the bay that formerly housed the company’s 767 line will remain empty for the time being, where Boeing will “move [787s] inside that main factory…then prep them to go install the new configuration and we use that ATS facility to do all of that work.”
By early 2012, the vacant area of Building 40-24 will be replaced with the Everett surge final assembly line, intended to advance the airframer’s output to 10 aircraft per month by the end of 2013, along with the North Charleston factory coming online mid-year with a contribution of three aircraft per month.
With the latest configuration standards program sources say Boeing will be able to eliminate more than 30,000 of the outstanding jobs on the unfinished 787s by nullifying the planned structural, systems and software changes to the originally built aircraft, and implementing a wholesale wiring change – believed to be dubbed NC7 – bringing each up to a deliverable standard.
Along with ATS Hangar Three, Boeing activated its San Antonio facility in March, with Airplane 23, the first 787 for Japan Airlines, the first aircraft to go through change incorporation in Texas.
Currently, four of the earliest 787s slated for delivery per the Z23 schedule – Airplanes Seven, Eight, Nine and 24 – are sequestered at ATS in preparation for delivery, which is believed to be slated for July.
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This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.