Daily Insight: Friday 1 February 2019: Boeing’s Bionic Men

News

Boeing is using bionics and advanced manufacturing technologies to increase the efficiency of its 787 production facilities.

Analysis

Improving the throughput of 787 production as the rate increases to 14 per month will help Boeing reduce the massive costs of the program development faster. Currently, Boeing is reducing the development costs by only $16 million per aircraft – with about $23 billion in deferred costs to recover. That means sales need to remain strong for another 8.5 years and deliveries remain at 14 per month, or profitability improve.  The latter is more likely.