The future of commercial aviation will have to wait a little longer, as Boeing announced a delay in the roll-out of its revolutionary 787 line of passenger jets. A game-changing, software-enabled manufacturing process and supply chain management system couldn't keep the 787 on schedule.
Boeing is having major chunks of the plane built halfway around the world from each other. Technology is the enabler of this kind of collaboration, which involves a significant amount of product lifecycle management across multiple countries. Boeing requires all its partners on the 787 to use an application called Catia, made by Dassault, and the plane is designed at a special online site, maintained by Boeing, called the Global Collaboration Environment.
But the collaborative process has run into some problems. Boeing cites "ongoing challenges with out-of-sequence production work, including parts shortages, and remaining software and systems integration activities."
Boeing executive vice president Scott Carson, the CEO of the company's commercial airline division, says delays stemmed in part from "unplanned rework for sections delivered to us. Parts availability from remaining structural pieces to fasteners to other small parts has affected the sequencing of the work in the factory, compounding these delays."
A Boeing representative says the company has been "very engaged over the last several months with each one of our major structural suppliers and further down in the supply chain. I think we clearly have learned some things about how we could do this job better in the future. We have taken steps to make those corrections."
Source: CIO Insight, http://blog.cioinsight.com