Boeing has confirmed that the 787 supply chain has the capacity to support a second major production ramp-up after 2010, but the precise timing for such a move is still being reviewed.
"We're trying to get some experience under our belts before we get to our next big rate decision, but technically you could do whatever you want," says Mike Bair, Boeing's vice-president and general manager for 787. "It's just how much money you think is prudent to invest."
Boeing already plans to jumpstart 787 production next year to start delivering about nine aircraft a month. That rate will plateau in 2009, but is likely to rise again to 10 a month in 2010.
With 787 production slots now booked through 2013, the only constraint on the airliner's potential market growth appears to be production capacity until Airbus fields a competitor after 2014. Boeing is continuing to study further rate increases, which are understood to range from 11 or 12 a month in 2011, and to as many as 15 a month after 2012.
"The whole issue is, what does it take to stand up the capability in the supply base to do this?" Bair asks. "The issue we're really working on is how much investment would have to be made to support higher rates and what we're trading off now is clearly market demand to go to higher rates."
Boeing's nightmare scenario is a repeat of the late 1980s, when the industry poured cash into building more production capacity only to witness market demand crash a few years later.
"What we're trying to avoid is making a premature decision based on rates that would cause a lot of people to build a lot of facilities that they might not need," Bair says.
Boeing originally planned to complete the production rate study at mid-year, but that has been delayed until at least end-year. The company could wait until it sees the results of the initial ramp-up starting in 2008.
"In terms of when we'll make the production increases, we have an interesting dynamic going on between the programme and the sales team," Bair says. "Our sales [staff] wants a decision yesterday so they can have more airplanes to sell. We are trying to push the decision off as far as we possibly can to get some more experience, so we have better data to make the decision."
Boeing does not appear to be overly concerned that delaying the decision too long might give the upper hand to the A350 XWB in some campaigns.
"I think if you look at that airplane and what we know about it, which isn't a lot, it's a bigger airplane than this airplane," Bair said. "So they kind of left the 787 alone and are going at kind of the bottom of the 777 and maybe the top end of the 787. So I think we're going to see continued sales success because of the unique position this airplane has in the marketplace."
Source: Flight International
