Boeing sees fewer fuselage defects, helping lift productivity

Boeing Co. said it’s seeing a sharp drop in defects on 737 Max fuselages arriving from supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. and an uptick in the pace at which the cashcow planes move through its factory south of Seattle.

During two days of Seattle-area tours for reporters, Boeing provided a glimpse of the work underway to address lapses in safety and retrain workers, under the close supervision of US regulators. Boeing has beefed up training and skills testing for recent hires, and it’s paying more attention to how work assignments and parts are handed off between shifts of workers. 

“When I entered into this company, safety was drilled into my DNA, and I believe it still is,” said Elizabeth Lund, the Boeing senior vice president spearheading the quality initiative in its factories and with US regulators. “It’s important for us to be humble. For us to look for opportunities for us to step back and say here’s an area where we’re not as strong as we want to be.”

Boeing’s operational and financial performance has been thrown into turmoil since the Jan. 5 blowout of a fuselage panel on an airborne 737 Max 9 aircraft. As a result of the accident, the company has slowed output of its 737 aircraft to improve its manufacturing. The company has also come under the public glare of regulators, airlines and the flying public, and has endured a rising tide of company whistleblowers laying bare alleged shortfalls on the company shop floors. 

The planemaker said it’s paying special attention to so-called “traveled work.” It’s the industry term for unfinished jobs that travel down the assembly line with jets, often leading to more complications since defective or missing parts are tackled out of the regular production cadence. 

To do so, it’s simplifying and standardizing processes for mechanics and quality inspectors, revising build plans that sometimes date back half a century or more. The 737 plant in Renton is also piloting new analytical tools to better manage out-of-sequence work, so that critical jobs are prioritized and dealt with immediately. 

The undertaking underscores the complexity of Boeing’s supply-chain challenges, and the reality that they aren’t going away any time soon. The planemaker is in the process of buying back Spirit, its former Wichita, Kansas campus that still makes large structural components for the 737, 787 and other jets.

The reintegration should give Boeing greater control over operations at Spirit, although the companies have traditionally collaborated closely. At the start of March, Boeing moved teams of inspectors to the supplier with instructions not to sign off on fuselages bound by rail for Renton until they were free of imperfections.

The change has cut defects by 80% so far, improving the manufacturing flow at Boeing, Lund said.

Addressing reporters in front of a fuselage newly arrived from Wichita, 737 program chief Katie Ringgold pointed to orange tape flagging a slight dimple her workers had found on the plane’s aluminum surface.

Boeing is “on a journey” to having fuselages arrive free of defects, she said. Its teams are in contact with Spirit daily, while she meets every week with Pat Shanahan, the supplier’s CEO.

The manufacturing pace is starting to move higher, and within months should be back near the pre-crisis pace of 38-jets per month.

“My focus is not on rate. My focus is on stabilizing this factory,” she said.