JF Mezei
2009-08-27 03:12:56 UTC
There was an article in La Presse (montreal newspaper) a couple of days ago.
The Title was akin to "C-Series: Bombardier wants to avoid the
Dreamliner NIGHTMARE".
Obvsiouly a PR effort from Bombardier. This was sparked by Bombardier
having received one large fuselage plug from its chinese contractor for
the C-series and Bombardier says that it is looking good and will be
performing much testing on it before allowing production to begin.
Bombardier also said that it has much experience dealing with separate
suppliers so it should avoid Boeing's problems. (but this is somewhat
misleading because Boeing's 777 programme worked very well and the 777
has work more widely distributed than the C-Series will have.)
I think the main difference is that Bombardier gave work to various
contractors commisurate with those contractors's previous work with
Bombardier. For instance, Shenyang Air Craft Corp has been making
fuselage sections for the Dash8-400, so making fuselage sections for the
C-Series is within its existing field of experience, and Shorts Brothers
has been making wings for other Bombardier aircraft for many years, so
making the wings for the C-Series is within its field of experience.
I think Bombardier was refering to Boeing agreeing to give Voight some
huge responsabilities for managing many other contractors and doing
major integration and assembly when in the past that work was done by
Boeing and Voight was just a parts manufacturer.
While Boeing has now relegated Voight back to being a parts manufacturer
when it bought the Voight assembly plant (thus giving Boeing control to
fix that portion of the Dreamliner), I am a bit worried about the Alenia
problems.
Since 787 fuselage sections are made by different people, wouldn't
Alenia's recently announced fuselage problems apply to other
manufacturer of Dreamliner fuselage sections ? Wouldn't they all use the
same hardware/software , materials and process to create those sections ?
Alenia has had a good record of delivering high quality stuff. For
instance, they delivered a number of sections of the US side of
International Space Station, and were given additional responsabilities
to build new modules because they had proven they could spit out the
"aluminium cans" and outfit them on time and on budget.
So I find it puzzling that SO LATE IN THE GAME, folks like Alenia would
ring some alarm about production problems. I could have understood if
they had announced problems back in 2006 or even 2007. Why only detect
problems in 2009 when the plane should have already been in commercial
operation for over a year with Boeing spitting out about 10 787s per
month by now ?
And it is even more worrying that they would have knowingly produced 27
fuselage sections with the problem before deciding to stop production
and fix the problem. And we can't know if Boeing forced them to continue
production, or if Alenia blindly continued production hoping Boeing
wouldn't notice. From a Quality-Assurance point of view, it appears to
me that Boeing had some serious defficiencies in its contracts with
Alenia (and possibly others)
Finally, this article also shows how the media have now see the 787 as
the "poster boy" of production problems while in the past, the media
loved to refer to the A380 delays.
Hopefully, the Bombardier C-Series will have a succesful introduction
within 6 months of its target dates.
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.
The Title was akin to "C-Series: Bombardier wants to avoid the
Dreamliner NIGHTMARE".
Obvsiouly a PR effort from Bombardier. This was sparked by Bombardier
having received one large fuselage plug from its chinese contractor for
the C-series and Bombardier says that it is looking good and will be
performing much testing on it before allowing production to begin.
Bombardier also said that it has much experience dealing with separate
suppliers so it should avoid Boeing's problems. (but this is somewhat
misleading because Boeing's 777 programme worked very well and the 777
has work more widely distributed than the C-Series will have.)
I think the main difference is that Bombardier gave work to various
contractors commisurate with those contractors's previous work with
Bombardier. For instance, Shenyang Air Craft Corp has been making
fuselage sections for the Dash8-400, so making fuselage sections for the
C-Series is within its existing field of experience, and Shorts Brothers
has been making wings for other Bombardier aircraft for many years, so
making the wings for the C-Series is within its field of experience.
I think Bombardier was refering to Boeing agreeing to give Voight some
huge responsabilities for managing many other contractors and doing
major integration and assembly when in the past that work was done by
Boeing and Voight was just a parts manufacturer.
While Boeing has now relegated Voight back to being a parts manufacturer
when it bought the Voight assembly plant (thus giving Boeing control to
fix that portion of the Dreamliner), I am a bit worried about the Alenia
problems.
Since 787 fuselage sections are made by different people, wouldn't
Alenia's recently announced fuselage problems apply to other
manufacturer of Dreamliner fuselage sections ? Wouldn't they all use the
same hardware/software , materials and process to create those sections ?
Alenia has had a good record of delivering high quality stuff. For
instance, they delivered a number of sections of the US side of
International Space Station, and were given additional responsabilities
to build new modules because they had proven they could spit out the
"aluminium cans" and outfit them on time and on budget.
So I find it puzzling that SO LATE IN THE GAME, folks like Alenia would
ring some alarm about production problems. I could have understood if
they had announced problems back in 2006 or even 2007. Why only detect
problems in 2009 when the plane should have already been in commercial
operation for over a year with Boeing spitting out about 10 787s per
month by now ?
And it is even more worrying that they would have knowingly produced 27
fuselage sections with the problem before deciding to stop production
and fix the problem. And we can't know if Boeing forced them to continue
production, or if Alenia blindly continued production hoping Boeing
wouldn't notice. From a Quality-Assurance point of view, it appears to
me that Boeing had some serious defficiencies in its contracts with
Alenia (and possibly others)
Finally, this article also shows how the media have now see the 787 as
the "poster boy" of production problems while in the past, the media
loved to refer to the A380 delays.
Hopefully, the Bombardier C-Series will have a succesful introduction
within 6 months of its target dates.
--
misc.travel.air-industry is a moderated newsgroup. Please mail messages to
***@airinfo.aero, and see http://mtai.airinfo.aero for the FAQ and policies.