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Building the 7E7 requires less money, fewer employees

By Dominic Gates
Seattle Times aerospace reporter

GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Frank Statkus is leading Boeing's work on new technology, tools and processes for the 7E7.

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Boeing is working in Seattle with its 7E7 partners to invent and perfect new processes for manufacturing composite parts bigger than any previously built anywhere.

Yet ultimately, when mass production starts in 2008, those large composite sections won't be manufactured here in Puget Sound — but in Italy, Japan and Texas.

Bringing the 7E7 together in huge pieces from around the world will mean dramatically reduced costs for Boeing and dramatically fewer 7E7 employees than on previous programs.

An internal Boeing document obtained by The Seattle Times provides firm data on Boeing's 7E7 expectations.

The company projects a total of 1,000 employees working on the program in Everett after the initial development phase is over and the jet is being mass-produced.

That compares with more than 5,000 on the 777, the commercial-jet program that preceded the 7E7, 12 years ago.

Boeing stresses that this doesn't mean layoffs, only that the work force will not grow again as 7E7s begin to roll off the production line in large numbers.

"We won't necessarily go down in head count," said spokeswoman Yvonne Leach. "It just means the 7E7 will be done differently."

Just how differently became clearer yesterday in a wide-ranging interview with Frank Statkus, vice president of new technology, tools and processes for the 7E7.

Statkus worked most of his 32 years at Boeing on the defense side of the aviation business, most recently leading development on the company's bid for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, which it lost to Lockheed Martin in 2001.

He described the unprecedented cooperation between global partners now going on in Boeing's Development Center across from Boeing Field — a facility where the company also does advanced and secret work for the military.

There, engineers from Alenia of Italy, Kawasaki of Japan and Vought of Dallas, Texas — responsible for different fuselage sections — work side-by-side with Boeing engineers.

"We walked to the edge of the technology of manufacturing composites and looked around and said, 'This industry is not ready to do all this. We've got some invention to do,' " said Statkus.

The solution to the large composites problem is taking shape.

To create the fuselage barrel in a single piece, Boeing has invented a machine with four computer-controlled robotic arms working simultaneously around a huge rotating drum.

The robotic arms are laying down strips of carbon-fiber tape impregnated with thermoset plastic in patterns precisely defined by the engineering instructions.

The epoxy-infused carbon tape builds up layer-upon-layer into a laminated sheet that is then hardened by baking in a house-sized high-pressure oven at 350 degrees.

Boeing is getting ready to move to eight simultaneous robotic tape-laying arms.

"We could do it with as many as 32 or 64," said Statkus. "We've already got that planned.

"If you want to know where the state-of-the-art in composite-technology manufacturing is, it's here," he said. "There's no one else in the world doing this kind of work."

Statkus' primary role on the 7E7 is to lead development and application of the software tools that will be used to transform every part of the process of airplane building.

Boeing has already used the software to develop tooling concepts for the fuselage work. Its partners are also using it to figure out how the 7E7 production will fit inside their factories.

On the 7E7, parts will be designed virtually, so that they fit together without holding tools.

"We can build snap-together airplanes," Statkus said, "We did that on JSF."

"Before we build a single part, we will have defined in three-dimensional solids every piece of the airplane: every bolt, every wire, every wire connector, all the kinematics — the moving parts," he said.

Each individual 7E7 airplane will have a complete digital definition that can be modified as the plane is modified during its lifetime.

"We'll put it on a disk," Statkus said. "We used to have a roomful of drawings."

The software will cut out a great deal of work that was previously necessary, along with the need for some of the workers who used to do it.

The Boeing internal document shows, for example, that the number of engineers needed to work on the program in the post-development phase is reduced to 200 on the 7E7, from 2,400 on the 777.

Statkus said the new software tools allow engineers to design and build modifications quickly on computers. When an engineer makes a design change, the software automatically propagates the change, making necessary adjustments to other affected parts.

"What used to take 50 engineers two to three weeks will take a couple of engineers a few hours," Statkus said.

"We've always had engineering out on the shop floor and around the program itself," said Statkus. "We've evolved past the stage where large numbers of those people will be required."

Charles Bofferding, executive director of Boeing's white-collar union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, said he found the projections shocking.

"Hearing those numbers alarms me," Bofferding said, "We need to investigate and better understand this. But I'm skeptical it can or should be done."

Boeing's internal analysis provides further data on why the company wants to build the new jet this way.

Both the onetime tooling costs and the recurring costs per airplane for the 7E7 are projected at one-seventh of the comparable costs on the 777.

In Boeing's competition with Airbus, those savings are powerful reasons for the course Statkus is leading.

Statkus summed it all this way: "We can do a better job with fewer folks, fewer pieces, less time, and fewer dollars."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

A lean 7E7 work force
Boeing will require considerably fewer workers to assemble the 7E7 than any previous airplane. A December 2003 internal Boeing document compares the number of employees on the 777 program with the projected numbers for the 7E7.
	777	7E7
Percentage of the airplane assembled by Boeing	100%	15%
Employees working on final assembly	2,800	800
Engineers supporting the program's post-development phase	2,400	200
Total machinists working on the program at all Boeing sites	4,260	1,700
Source: Internal Boeing document

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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