Fabrication specialist and 30-year Boeing Salt Lake employee. “We just jumped in and learned how to do things. We don’t let anybody fail here.” That determined approach has gone a long way to expanding Boeing’s presence in Utah, Boeing Salt Lake site general manager Larry Coughlin said. As employees have reinvented themselves, the site has grown from one factory to three. In the West Jordan factory, the site’s newest, the Salt Lake team worked closely with people from other Fabrication locations to design and build a production line that uses new technology and advanced automation to improve upon, not simply replicate, what has been done in the past, he said. It’s all part of the fabric of a resilient aerospace site. “With its wealth of knowledge, this place knows how to build airplanes,” Coughlin said. Boeing Salt Lake represents one of 11 Boeing Fabrication sites operating in three countries, with others located in such places as the Seattle area; Portland, Ore.; Helena, Mont.; South Carolina; Melbourne, Australia; and Boeing Winnipeg, in Canada. Each plays 12 | BOEING FRONTIERS a role in converting bulky metals or sleek composite materials into flight-critical jetliner parts. In Salt Lake, the three Boeing manufacturing facilities emerge from the shadows of the Wasatch Range, which runs north and south through much of the state and offers these aerospace employees access to world-class ski areas during the winter. The Airport and Northport factories are located within a mile of each other near Salt Lake City International Airport. The West Jordan plant is housed in a converted kitchen cabinet-making warehouse 20 miles (30 kilometers) away. Boeing employs more than 700 people at the three buildings. The Airport facility, approaching its 30th anniversary, has experienced the most change. Employees produced fuselages and empennages for heritage company McDonnell Douglas MD-80 jetliners there until the airplane program ended. They supplied spare airplane parts until that was discontinued. And they’ve learned how to make carbon-fiber jetliner parts after years of working only with aluminum and other metal machining. “I don’t think anybody here has been afraid of change,” said Kristen Photos: (Left) Randelyn Brady, a manufacturing associate who performs console wiring on the 787, installs overhead panel system lights at the Northport factory, one of two Boeing facilities near the Salt Lake City airport. (Right) Butch and Sundance, robots named by employees, have helped reduce work on a 787 horizontal stabilizer from three days to a single shift at the West Jordan, Utah, factory. Bonkoski, Boeing Salt Lake business operations specialist. “It’s one of our guiding principles—we have to embrace change.” Production lines for 787-9 and 787-10 horizontal stabilizers and a third for the 787 vertical fin operate side by side in the Airport factory. Components are added to the tail structures, which are tested for quality, assembled for fit checks and then disassembled. The site ships out up to 14 sets of horizontal stabilizers each month to factories in North Charleston, S.C., and Everett, Wash. Kayla Bruner, a two-year assembly specialist who performs finish work on the 787 vertical fin, draws inspiration from her more experienced colleagues. She credits them with being effective role models who set the pace at Boeing Salt Lake. “Not only do we compete with Airbus, we drive one another to be the best mechanics we can be,” Bruner said. “I know what motivates me: When you’re surrounded by 25-year veterans, that’s what you aspire to be. They make all the tough jobs look easy.” A regular feature at the Airport plant is the Kaizen Walk, which in Japanese roughly translates to an improvement
Frontiers October 2016 Issue
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