Bill Greene, then a structures team manager and avowed fan of driver Dale Earnhardt and now a 787 engineering leader, suggested a NASCAR pit-stop approach as a possible solution. There were skeptics: Auto racing and airplanes? Yet the more people looked into it, the more it made sense. Soon a Boeing contingent was traveling to the South to obtain firsthand pit-crew knowledge. “We went to see Roush Fenway Racing in North Carolina to understand what they do, how the time in the pits is a competitive advantage, how the car is built to support that,” said Nancy McCutchin, Boeing engineering manager, who oversaw her final Pit Crew workshop in November and retired after 27 years at Boeing. “It clicked with us. Bill Greene’s casual comment started the whole thing and we ran with it.” By 2004, McCutchin and her team were holding workshop sessions and, playing to the NASCAR theme, calling them “race days.” Pit Crew Academy T-shirts were handed out to the earliest attendees. Participants still receive academy certificates as keepsakes. Design engineers and suppliers were the first involved. They were asked to develop 787 parts that were easier to install, the same as NASCAR requires in the heat of competition. Prototypes were built out of foam or cardboard. Traditional designs were scrapped in favor of efficiency. Stopwatches were used to measure installation times, which initially dropped 75 to 80 percent, McCutchin said. In 2008, 787 final assembly employees were brought in for installation training on the Dreamliner. Two years ago, 20 minutes, whereas on other planes it can take an hour and a half. They did much of this work without tools, simply fastening and unfastening 787 composite pieces. With a combined 210 years of airline maintenance experience, the Air Canada workers from Toronto and Vancouver were full of questions and seemed pleased by the Pit Crew Academy answers. Their jobs, they concluded, would become less stressful with the added knowledge. “Since I started, this is by far the best training I’ve ever had,” said Steve Cullen, a 16-year interior technician for Air Canada from Toronto. “As mechanics, we’re hands-on with everything. The best way to learn is hands-on.” The Pit Crew Academy evolved from a conversation in 2001. Following a program request for a 50 percent cut in recurring maintenance costs, 38 Boeing Fronti ers
Frontiers February 2015 Issue
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