Outside supplier for Boeing moves inside

How can Boeing send work out to a supplier and yet keep it in house? Just have the supplier move right in.

In a move that doesn't sit too well with the Machinists' union, Boeing has leased a 25,000-square-foot building inside its Everett jet plant to Messier-Dowty, which provides the landing gear for the new 787 Dreamliner.

Messier-Dowty will make parts in England and France, assemble the main structure in Montreal, Canada, then ship everything to Everett to complete the landing gear and add wheels and tires.

The work, in Boeing's 40-05 building, should provide jobs for 20 people, says Messier-Dowty spokeswoman Alison Joly.

Boeing has outsourced landing-gear assembly since 1996. When Messier-Dowty got the 787 landing-gear contract, the Paris-based company had to hunt for a new facility near Boeing. It turned out the best place was right inside.

Boeing has been ramping up production for a couple years, but it had an empty building, thanks to its extensive streamlining efforts.

The fact that Messier-Dowty is a nonunion shop riles International Association of Machinists district President Mark Blondin. Having long fought foreign outsourcing, Blondin now is also zeroing in on Boeing work given to suppliers that come into the state but don't provide union wages and benefits.

The Machinists will attempt to organize Messier-Dowty, says Blondin — so having its employees working next door to his members might prove useful.

"Having them that close," he says, "it's just a good opportunity for them to see what can be done if they join a union."

Once assembled, the main landing gear will be right where it needs to be, close to the 787 final assembly bay.

But the smaller nose landing gear will have another journey ahead. Because of the complexity of Boeing's outsourced business model, the nose gear must be flown to Wichita's Spirit Aerosystems — Boeing's former Wichita plant. After it's attached to the forward fuselage, it will travel back to Everett.

Welcome to the twisting 787 supply chain: the nose gear is sent from inside a Boeing plant and worked on at an ex-Boeing plant. But only at the end is Boeing directly involved.

— Dominic Gates

Firm has worms; it hopes they spread

Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects has added several hundred additional workers — but not the human kind.

The architecture and interior-design firm, based in Portland, is running a worm compost bin in its 24th-floor office in downtown Seattle — the company's latest effort to encourage green building practices among its employees and clients.

The bin, about the size of a small television, is filled with more than 500 worms. Each day they transform the 85-employee office's food waste into rich, re-usable soil.

The worm compost bin is the pet project of interior designer Elizabeth Dunigan, who was looking for ways to make the office more eco-friendly. ZGF already uses hybrid office cars, low-flow toilets and sensor-activated faucets.

The worms were a bit more of a hard sell.

"There was a lot of concern about odors and the worms grossing people out," says Dunigan, who uses her free time each day to work on the upkeep of the worms.

As a result, the worms' 'cubicle' is a dark-colored plastic container, discreetly tucked into a break area of the office so employees won't have to watch the worms work.

Dunigan is considering starting an officewide 'worm diary' to share interesting facts about them. Their favorite foods, for example, are pear and bananas.

The worms' job isn't just to grind through egg shells and apple cores — it's also to inspire staffers to practice waste-saving techniques. And they serve as sort of a mirror into the company's philosophy of green building, associate partner Leslie Morison says.

The firm has 30 projects under way that are or will be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council under its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

Companywide, ZGF has 400 employees and posted sales of $92 million in 2006. The Seattle office saw sales of $17.3 million last year.

"We're committed to walking the talk as well as talking the talk," Morison says.

The worms live under a buffer of torn paper that Dunigan has thrown into their container, and it keeps them from smelling. Most of the time, employees don't even know they're there.

The firm is hoping to incorporate the waste-recycling technique into its upcoming projects, including possibly placing food recycling bins — sans worms — at the Portland International Airport, where it has a current project. It's also hoping other offices in its building will catch on.

"This whole notion of sustainability is seen as this big thing that people have trouble getting their arms around," Morison says. "This is little steps."

— Kirsten Orsini-Meinhard

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Rami Grunbaum: rgrunbaum@seattletimes.com