Boeing adds more surprise quality checks in its factories
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Boeing is conducting more surprise inspections at its factories as part of a broader plan to prevent manufacturing snafus like the one that led to a jet-panel blowout on an Alaska Air flight a year ago. The jet maker outlined on Friday more than a dozen steps it has taken in recent months to tackle a manufacturing quality crisis that has forced Boeing to slow production and has put it under the microscope of federal regulators.
Some of the steps have been previously reported. Boeing restarted production at its 737 factory in December after a machinists strike stopped work for several months. The company is still producing far fewer 737 MAXs per month than it was in the months before the Alaska Airlines accident.
Among the new procedures are another layer of random quality checks where plane parts are commonly removed and then put back. In the case of the MAX involved in last January’s incident, workers failed to replace bolts needed to hold a door-plug in place. The plug had been opened to repair faulty rivets.
Other measures include inspecting fuselages made by supplier Spirit AeroSystems before they leave Spirit’s factory, additional worker training, confidentiality safeguards for employees who report problems and simplified instructions for building 737s. Boeing in May submitted a plan to the Federal Aviation Administration that included performance goals that the agency will use to determine whether its quality-improvement efforts are succeeding. The metrics will track defects, employee proficiency, supplier shortages, factory work done out of sequence and time spent fixing flaws introduced by Boeing and by suppliers.
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