- [Narrator] Last week,
I was invited to Boeing South Carolina
in Charleston to see their operation.
This is also in conjunction with the world's first
Boeing 787-10 delivery to Singapore Airlines.
First, let's look at the Dreamlifter.
Four modified Boeing 747-400 jumbo jets
called the Dreamlifter
carry the 787 parts and assemblies between Japan, Italy,
Wichita, Kansas,
North Charleston, South Carolina,
and Everett, Washington.
These big aeroplanes carry three times as much cargo
by volume as the standard 747-400 Freighters.
(mellow rock music)
I started my day with a media tour from the meeting room,
which has an amazing view
of the Final Assembly Line of Boeing 787.
I'm also going to show you the Final Assembly of Boeing 787,
the Midbody Operation where they build the mid-fuselage,
the Aftbody Operation where the aftbody
and tail cone is built,
and Boeing Interiors Responsibility Centre,
where they manufacture over-bins, et cetera.
- I guess like, you know real quick,
tell us the advantage of the 787.
If you have a customer who want to buy the 787,
what would you tell them?
- It's the best passenger experience for passengers.
The most fuel-efficient aeroplane for airlines.
And it can take people anywhere they want to go.
- Right.
- So that's what I would tell people
if they wanted to buy a 787.
- And how long it took from scratch to build a 787?
- You know Sam, that's a really hard question.
Because it's not like buying a car,
like you go to a car dealer and there's a car sitting there
and you say, "I want that car."
We work with our customers, they plan out over years,
even decades, what their fleet wants to look like.
And we plan with them when to give them the aeroplanes
that's the most advantageous for them.
And every airline has a different interior,
they have different options.
They want the aeroplane exactly the way they want it.
So it's a long process.
And depending upon when they need the aeroplane
to what they want in the aeroplanes --
- So guys, behind me is the Boeing South Carolina plant
the Boeing 787 Final Assembly Line.
So the plane were all built here, the Dreamliner.
Especially the 787-10,
only built in South Carolina in Charleston.
- This factory, less than a decade ago, was marshland.
And so I am certainly excited
to have the opportunity to lead this factory.
And walk in every day and see the progress we've made.
When I think about,
nothing existed here about a decade ago,
to where we are today,
it is really, really exciting.
Back in 2011, we opened Final Assembly.
In April of 2011.
In September, we began the build of the first 787.
And then we rolled that out in April of 2012.
So just seven months from starting the 787
here in Charleston to rolling out.
And that was a big day.
And then today,
here we are getting a chance to celebrate delivery
of our first 787-10 with Singapore.
So in this Final Assembly,
we have about 1.2 million square feet.
So that's about 10 American football stadiums,
1.2 million square feet.
We have eight positions,
we break our build up into positions.
So we start here with position zero,
and we move down to the end of the factory
for the third position.
And then we have position four through eight,
four through seven, on the other side.
So our forward section, which also consists of the cockpit,
comes from Wichita, Kansas.
Our midbody rolls right from the other factory across here.
Delivered in midbody is our sections.
And you'll have a chance to see that, from Italy and Japan.
And then of course, we build from carbon fibre,
the aft body here onsite.
The wings come from Japan,
as well as wingtips from South Korea.
And parts all over the world.
It's the one place here in Charleston,
Boeing South Carolina,
where we can talk about the 787 from freezer to flight.
Currently, we are building at 12 a month 787s.
We will be moving to 14 a month in 2019.
We have a really strong partnership
with our Everett team as well.
We have one production system, one build plan.
And of course it is certainly important for us,
we have one certificate.
And we deliver a high-quality product to our customers.
- [Engineer] This is the heart of the programme.
Everything takes shape here.
And then from here, once the airplane's painted, tested,
we will fly some sections to Everett.
Same thing, we put it on the Dreamlifter.
So as you see right here, this is the wing box.
Down at Final Assembly they're gonna take a wing
and attach it to it.
So that is the backbone to the wing
to attach to the aeroplane.
And then this cell is where we start putting
all the electrical wires, some of the systems.
So there's about 76 miles of electrical wire
that goes into a 787, roughly.
So it's all gonna happen in this cell.
So they're gonna start putting all the electrical wires,
and systems like ducts,
and hydraulic runs, waste tubes,
and air conditioning type of ducts.
So anything that has to do with a system
it happens in this cell.
- So in Aftbody, this facility, it's two parts.
A composite facility,
and an assembly and installation facility.
We start our composite build
using this quarter-inch composite tape.
And I'm gonna pass this around,
you'll feel it, it's kind of tacky.
It's resin-infused carbon fibre.
And if you look down onto one of these machines,
this is an automated fibre placement machine.
It places this, it's called tow, quarter-inch tow.
If you look,
you'll see that there are
a number of these yellow spools in this box.
That is a temperature-controlled,
humidity-controlled environment.
That keeps that carbon fibre tacky so it doesn't dry out.
The carbon fibre, there's 32 of those spools,
feed through that machine to the orange head,
the end effector.
It feeds all 32 plies, tows, up to that head.
Such that when it lays composite material on the mandrels,
the barrel section,
it's laying down an eight-inch swath of composite material.
And we wind that around the entire barrel.
Whether it's a 47 section or a 48.
So if section 47 is the aft passenger compartment,
and then 48 is where the horizontal stab vertical fin
attach to the aeroplane.
To get this surface finished
that doesn't look like this composite tape,
we add a layer of electric discharge cloth.
So if lightning strikes the aeroplane, it dissipates.
And then also, surfacer.
So you can have a nice smooth surface finish to paint.
So this facility does all the composite work
and all of the assembling and installation work
for all aftbodies.
Dash-8s, dash-9s and 10s for the entire programme.
- [Narrator] So every aftbody is built here?
- Every aftbody is built in this facility.
Alright, so after we've come out of the autoclave,
you have a completed structure for the exterior skin.
We have a trim and drill machine
that cuts out all of the cutouts in the aeroplane.
Whether it's the horizontal stab cutouts,
forefront and 47 section, all the passenger windows,
the passenger door entry, bulk cargo door.
Again at the end of this process,
now we have a finished barrel that has all the skin
that we use to drill and fasten all those again,
internal hoop frames to section 48.
And it's called the QuadBot,
because we have one, two, three, four,
independent KUKA robots integrated by electroimpact.
They did the end effector design.
And it drills, selects the right grip length fastener,
seals it, and inserts the fastener.
We load our floor grid next.
The floor grid comes as a preassembled module.
It's rolled into the barrel.
And it's mechanically fastened to the frames,
to the edge of the floor grid itself.
And then after the join process,
we go to the right side of our factory.
And the right side is where we do
all of our systems installation.
- [Narrator] The Interiors Responsibility Centre team
fabricates and assembles 787 Dreamliner interior components.
Including storage bins, closets, partitions,
ceiling panels, class dividers, overhead crew rest,
video control station, and flight attendant modules.
Well, I hope the video gives you an insight
into Boeing's South Carolina 787 operation.
Thanks to Boeing team there for the tour,
and it's always a pleasure to share the video with you.
(mellow rock music)