It's go time for Boeing's interior plant

Practice is over. It's time to start making airplane cabin parts for real.

After seven weeks of learning how to fabricate stow bins, closets and other aircraft hardware, all punctuated by a graduation ceremony Friday, today marks the beginning of production at the Boeing Interiors Responsibility Center in North Charleston.

"They're ready to go," Vicki Ray, a Boeing Co. spokeswoman, said Friday of the 140-member team. "They're anxious." The 300,000-foot blue-and-white factory, which is just south of Palmetto Commerce Parkway on Patriot Boulevard, officially opened in December and will outfit each South Carolina-assembled 787 Dreamliner, beginning with the fourth plane this spring.

While others of the 11 such facilities within Boeing create and integrate the parts, the local interior center will be the only operation to also install the parts in the jets.

Rooms ranked

Three of the top 25 hotels in the U.S. are in Charleston, according to a new poll from TripAdvisor.

The French Quarter Inn at 166 Church St. came in at No. 7, the Restoration on King at 75 Wentworth St. ranked No. 19 and the Wentworth Mansion at 149 Wentworth St. was No. 24, according to Trip Advisor's Travelers Choice 2012 Best Hotels.

Google doubles down

Google's Berkeley County data center is recently double-certified and will soon enjoy double capacity.

Last fall, the Internet giant's operation off U.S. Highway 52, along with its five other U.S. data centers, received an environmental certification from the International Organization for Standardization, better known as ISO, and a workplace safety certification from BSI Management Systems, the company reported last week.

Exactly what those standards mean is unclear. Google, not the outside auditors, set the goals, and the company hasn't revealed much about the results. Writing on Google's blog, Joe Kava, senior director of data center construction and operations, did note one specific improvement: By minimizing use of its emergency generators, the search-engine giant has slashed oil consumption in those back-up power supplies by two-thirds. Such savings will be valuable when Google's second $600 million data center on the site near Moncks Corner comes online later this year. Testing will begin "in the next few weeks," a company spokeswoman said.

Wrapping it up

A Lowcountry builder that was once among the largest general contractors in the Southeast is being dismantled.

Malphrus Construction Co. Inc., which once had an office at 2442 Remount Road in North Charleston and has been around for more than 70 years, filed to be liquidated last week through the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The Beaufort County company said in late 2010 that it was suspending operations after wrapping up its existing jobs, blaming the prolonged economic slump and real estate crash that many crushed many a builder.

At its peak, Malphrus had more than 1,000 workers. Its initial bankruptcy listed assets of between $1 million and $10 million and debts between $10 million and $50 million.