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By Scott Hamilton

Greg Hyslop. Credit: Leeham News.

July 4, 2022, © Leeham News: When Boeing launches its next new commercial airplane program, whatever the design, advanced development, and production are intended to be a key part of the plan.

Officials have been hinting at this approach since the administration of CEO Jim McNerney. His successor, Dennis Muilenburg, opened the veil a bit more. David Calhoun, Muilenburg’s successor, has been more open about the concept.

Last month, Greg Hyslop, the executive vice president of Engineering, Test & Technology and the chief engineer for Boeing, was the most revealing yet. In a briefing in advance of the Farnborough Air Show that begins on July 18, detailed how digital design and advanced production will fit into the Next Boeing Airplane (NBA) plan.

Related Article

• Migrating advanced processes from Defense to Commercial isn’t a cakewalk

Boeing's new approach to aircraft design, production, and assembly is illustrated above. The Defense unit used this for the T-7 Red Hawk trainer and the MQ-25 unmanned Navy refueling tanker. But a lot of work is necessary to migrate this to Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Credit: Boeing.

However, Hyslop acknowledged that these advanced design and production processes must transition from low-rate defense projects to high-rate commercial airplanes. This is the “maturity” Boeing CEO said recently is required before the NBA proceeds.

Summary

• Scalability is key to migrating digital and production transformation from defense to commercial.
• Lessons learned from 787 an important step.
• Rebuilding the workforce also required for the next new Boeing airplane.