Vought gets past hurdles

An aerospace manufacturer that makes large sections of the Boeing 787 has ironed out most of the production wrinkles that hampered the startup of its North Charleston plant last year, its chief executive said Thursday.

Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. has built 15 sets of rear fuselages and shipped four to Boeing Co.'s main assembly site in Everett, Wash. The latest unit to be wheeled out the door included 98.7 percent of the parts that Boeing wants installed in North Charleston, said Elmer Doty, Vought's CEO.

"And the next shipped set will be even better," he said.

Last fall, Vought's North Charleston plant came under scrutiny when it delivered early sections to Boeing without all the components, raising questions about Boeing's decision to outsource the 787 to far-flung suppliers beyond the Seattle area.

Problems with the global vendor network arose immediately. Some of Vought's own suppliers shipped the company incomplete components, which in turn created a bottleneck in North Charleston. That in turn, caused delays in Everett, eventually forcing Boeing to push back the launch of its first 787 test flight.

Late last year, Boeing dispatched teams of its own engineers to work with the North Charleston plant and others that were experiencing startup problems.

Doty said the glitches between Dallas-based Vought and its vendors have been largely smoothed over.

"Critical to our success is that we receive complete assemblies from our supply chain rather than individual parts. This has been our most significant challenge to date. We are now getting there," he said.

Doty added that the fuselage sections now being made in North Charleston are "robust, and the processes are controllable and becoming suitably predictable." He allowed that the local operation is "not yet up to our normal standards" as an aircraft manufacturing site.

Doty declined to say how many fuselages Boeing expects Vought to deliver as they ramp up production over the next year or so. He did not disagree with an analyst who pegged the number at six or seven a month. "What I can say is that the last schedule we received, we are able to build to that schedule," he said.

Unlike most aircraft, which are aluminum, the 787 is being manufactured almost entirely with lightweight composites, partly to cut down on fuel consumption.

Chicago-based Boeing has lined up deals to sell almost 860 copies of the passenger jets to 57 customers, making the "Dreamliner" the most successful new commercial airplane launch in history. The first test flight is set for late June, roughly nine months later than planned.