Alenia ramps up on 787: Alenia Aeronautica is building all-composite one-piece barrel fuselage sections for the 787 at a brand-new facility in the south of Italy.

The timing could not have been better. Only days after Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson and 787 programme leader Mike Bait formally announced a delay of several weeks in the first flight of Boeing's new long-range twin--thereby swinging the spotlight onto production issues--Italian partner Alenia Aeronautica invited representatives of the global media to visit its brand-new facility dedicated to the production of all-composite one-piece barrel (OPB) fuselage sections for the aircraft. The new plant is located at Grottaglie, near Taranto, in the Puglia region in southern Italy.

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For Alenia, it was an opportunity to showcase its cutting-edge capabilities in composite aerostructures. Parent company Finmeccanica is making no bones about its ambitions in this area--it wants to leverage its strategic involvement in the 787 into a strengthened role as an indpendent prime partner in aerostructures. Finmeccanica is investing heavily in the 787, having already ploughed 550 million [euro] into the programme at various facilities across Italy--250 million [euro] in the Puglia region (210 million [euro] at Grottaglie and 40 million [euro] at Foggia), 40 million [euro] in the Naples area (Pomigliano d'Arco, Nola and Casoria), plus 260 million [euro] for engineering activities.

Risk-sharing stake

The company expects that figure to double over the next couple of years. But the gamble could pay off handsomely--Finmeccanica's 14% risk-sharing stake in the 787 airframe is expected to turn into high-margin business once the programme ramps up to cruising speed. Analysts are predicting that the 787 could be contributing the equivalent of half the company's 2006 EBIT by the turn of the decade. Significantly, financial analysts were invited to tour the Grottaglie plant several months before the media.

Whether by accident or design, Alenia is making its move at a time when the European aerostructures sector is in upheaval in the wake of Airbus plans to sell off some production facilities and outsource a greater share of future programmes under its Power 8 cost-cutting programme. Alenia is not actually bidding to take over any of the Airbus facilities currently on the block, though it will be seeking to participate in the A350XWB programme, as it has done on previous Airbus programmes.

For Boeing, the Grottaglie visit provided an opportunity to reassure observers that the "high-tech, high-risk" portion of the programme--production of OPB fuselage sections in carbon fibre composite, which has never been attempted on this scale--is proceeding smoothly. The problems that have occurred (e.g. the much ballyhooed shortage of fasteners) are decidedly low-tech and, by implication, more readily resolved. The 787 global supply chain may not yet be running as smoothly as planned (see box) but the problems do not seem insurmountable.

Maurizio Rosini, who is COO of Alenia Composite, the subsidiary that runs the Gottaglie operation, says that the fastener problem is gradually improving and that in any case it raises no real concerns--the use of slightly under-sized temporary fasteners facilitates the removal and replacement process by ensuring that holes do not have to be re-drilled. The other issue--installation of tubing and wiring before sections are shipped from Grottaglie, something that is not being done today--is expected to be resolved "within months".

The Grottaglie plant has been built on a site formerly used by Alitalia for maintenance of its MD-80 fleet. The site was extended to build the new 65,000[m.sup.2] fuselage barrel facility, and there is still plenty of room for further expansion, if needed. Construction started in 2005, and production got under way in November 2006. The runway at the adjacent Marcello Arlotta airport was also strengthened and extended (from 1,700m to 3,500m). Funding for the latter work (130 million [euro]) was provided by the Puglia region under its Regional Transport Plan.

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Alenia Aeronautica's workshare on the 787 includes sections 44 (above the wing) and 46 (immediately aft of the wing), as well as the horizontal stabliliser, produced at the company's historical centre of excellence for composites at Foggia, about 200km away.

The production flow starts in the clean room (at 175,000[m.sup.3] claimed to be the largest in Europe), where layers of prepreg tape are applied onto a huge invar mandrel almost six metres in diameter. The mandrel matches the shape and dimensions of the finished barrel sections--8.5m in length for section 44, 10-15m (depending on the 787 version) for section 46, with a diameter of 5.74m. The mandrel is rotated while the Ingersoll tape layer applies the fibre. The plant currently has two tape layers in operation, with a third in the process of installation.

This process is not entirely automated. David Brigante, Alenia Aeronautica Senior VP Commercial and Credit Management, explains that the first layer, applied once the stringers have been positioned on the mandrel, is placed manually, as is the final layer, which includes the metallic mesh necessary to ensure electrical continuity of the airframe. The completed barrel section is then bagged and cured, along with its integral stringers, in an 8.5m-diameter autoclave.

After debagging, the section (with the mandrel still in place) is transferred to a trimming and drilling station where apertures are cut out for doors and windows. The collapsible mandrel is then removed and replaced by two large support rings, one at each end of the section, which carry the section for the remainder of the work sequence. Subsequent operations include 100% non-destructive inspection to check for defects in the composite structure; drilling and attachment of the frames (supplied by Alenia's Pomigliano factory); completion and inspection; and installation of the floor structure. With the floor structure in place, the barrel sectios are sufficiently rigid for the support rings to be removed, prior to systems installation and preparation for shipment.

Completed shipsets are rolled out of the factory and directly loaded onto the Dreamlifter for shipment to South Carolina. They are delivered to Global Aeronautica, a joint venture between the Italian firm and Vought. The joint venture assembles the sections from Grottaglie, the adjoining forward fuselage section (section 43, made by Kawasaki Heavy Industries), plus section 11/45 (the centre landing gear bay and centre wing box, made by KHI and Fuji Heavy Industries and joined by FHI). Vought builds and assembles the aft portion of the fuselage (sections 47 and 48) at an adjoining facility. The completed aft fuselage assembly is transferred to Global Aeronautica for shipment.

The forward fuselage and nose section are built by Spirit Aerosystems.

Production rates

Rosini is cagey about production rates, refusing to confirm or deny one analyst's assertion that 10 shipsets per month was the near-term target. He simply asserts that Grottaglie will be capable of meeting Boeing's requirements, i.e. 112 aircraft by the end of 2009. One thing is clear--production is gaining momentum, under the watchful eye of the 20-or-so Boeing engineers still present on the site. It took almost six months to deliver the first five shipsets, whereas the interval between the fifth and sixth shipsets was down to less than two weeks. As the learning curve kicks in and the third tape layer comes on line, this can only accelerate.

In the meantime, Rosini claims the facility is already achieving "zero defect" levels of quality.

RELATED ARTICLE: Fixing the fastener problem.

What to make of production problems on the 787 programme? With Boeing under pressure to ramp up rapidly in response to soaring customer demand, the 6-10 week slippage in the first flight date marks a setback. Officially, the company still hopes to meet its May 2008 first-delivery milestone, but 787 programme leader Mike Bair acknowledges the fact that the compressed flight test schedule is now "very tight". Bair says the schedule slippage on aircraft No. 1 is due to a variety of factors. First, following an unexpected shortage of fasteners, thousands of temporary fasteners were used to assemble the aircraft rolled out on 8 July, oil of which must now be replaced. Another contributor is the amount of "travel work" being done in Everett--systems installation and wiring work that is supposed to be performed by external suppliers. Blair also said there had been problems due to assemblies arriving at Everett with documentation which did not match the actual work still to be done; documentation discrepancies had to be resolved manually. Finally, Honeywell's work on coding and integration of flight control system software is taking longer than expected. The bottom line is that the 787's highly sophisticated globe-spanning production network has been knocked off the rails by a combination of travel work issues and the need to revert to temporary fasteners. Should the system have done better? Bair says that the production system was not conceived to cope with the level of travel work that has occurred. The fastener problems basically "jumbled up" the way the first aircraft was put together, he argues. He insists the overall production system will be robust "when the system is working the way it's supposed to". The size of the window for the first flight date suggests the situation is not yet completely under control.