Boeing 777Design Build Teams

[ Design Philosophies | Design-Build Team | CATIA | Testing and ETOPS ]

Design-Build Teams / Cooperative Design

New Design Team

In the past, Boeing aircraft were designed with a production mentality. This time the design process reflects the views of the airlines that will fly the plane, the mechanics who will maintain it, and many others who will help build it, and market it. At the peak of the design effort, there were 238 teams using computing technology to design the 777. Design engineers and manufacturing engineers worked concurrently on the design of parts to decrease later change orders and to increase efficiency in building and installing those parts. Outside suppliers and airline customers also are represented on some teams.

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Customer Oriented Design

Boeing invited eight major airlines to help it determine the features of a new airplane. That launched an unprecendented collaboration between the company and its customors. Initially United, All Nippon Airways, British Airways, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific were among a number of carriers with whom Boeing held intensive discussions, including many group sessions, to define and develop the new airplane's configuration. The participating airlines represented a full range of operations in terms of route structure, traffic loads, service frequency and climate. Their input to the design process helps ensure that the final product has the broadest possible application to the needs of the world's airlines.

Another benefit of the intensive customer dialogue was a consensus that many items traditionally offered as optional, or special-request, features on other airplanes should be standard (or basic) equipment on the 777 since they are so frequently specified by most airlines. About 80 such items -- including satellite communication and global positioning systems -- are basic to the airplane. This reduces variability during design and production, while providing the airlines with a more economical equipment package.

Maintenance Oriented Design

For the first time, this Boeing project has a chief mechanic, Jack Hessburg, representing the people who will maintain the plane, forgotten players in the past. Hessburg has a mechanical engineering degree, but just to make clear whom he represents, he has shown up at meetings in Renton with a big red mechanic's towel hanging out of his rear pants pocket. "The gate mechanic touches a plane more than anyone," and the one he brought in both from Boeing and from airlines told the design engineers things they never knew. For example, a Japanese mechanic politely expressed his frustration at working in the most congested part of previous Boeings, the electronics and electrical bay under the cockpit. The door to the panel he was working on would swing shut, and his head would block the light. You can't do your best, he said, while holding a flashlight between your teeth and bracing the panel door open with your backside. Solution: Put a latch on the door to prop it open and move the light. Maintenance Man

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