GROTTAGLIE, Italy – The 787 will transform Alenia Aeronautica from an aerospace parts supplier to a major international player, its top executive said.
Pure and simple, Alenia had to be part of the Dreamliner program if it was to continue growing into international markets, said Vincenzo Caiazzo, the chief executive of the company’s North American unit.
That’s what led the company to pursue its joint venture with Vought Aircraft Industries in South Carolina, Caiazzo said. “It was more of a necessity than a strategic alignment.”
The change is working, said Caiazzo’s boss, Alenia chief executive Giovanni Bertoleone.
The company now is poised to design, integrate and assemble parts it used to fabricate and ship to Airbus and the Boeing Co. As a result, Bertoleone said, “Alenia Aeronautica cannot be defined as just an aerostructures company.”
But before Alenia can transform itself, it must complete new facilities in Italy that are tucked amid the olive trees along an out-of-the-way airstrip.
Grottaglie is a small city in the far south of Italy. Like much of Italy, the region is drenched in history. The Via Appia – the first Roman road – runs through it and crusaders set sail nearby for the Middle East.
“It’s a very quiet part of Italy,” said Dean Hill, a Boeing engineer who’s the liaison to Alenia.
Alenia has had facilities at Grottaglie’s airport, where it has done maintenance work for Alitalia, the Italian airline. So when Alenia became a partner on the 787, Grottaglie was a natural choice, said David Brigante, Alenia’s director of commercial airplane programs.
“We needed to be near an airport,” he explained, because Boeing was committed to flying parts in and out.
But Alenia had a big job ahead. The company transplanted more than 1,000 olive trees – some more than 400 years old – that were growing on the site. And workers are now doubling the length of the runway and building a new taxiway to allow Boeing’s 747 Large Cargo Freighters to pull up to the new factory for loading.
The 787 factory in Italy is big, even when compared to Boeing’s massive Everett factory, where the Dreamliner will eventually be assembled. At 690,000 square feet, it’s about as big as one of the assembly halls at the Boeing factory. It features the largest climate-controlled clean room in Europe, and overall is big enough to hold 15 soccer fields.
The Italians have done well, Hill said. Construction has gone “perfectly on schedule,” he added.
As big as the new factory is, it’s not big enough to build all the Dreamliners Boeing could sell, Brigante said.
Production rates
One of the hot topics in aerospace this summer has been speculation about the rate at which Boeing will produce 787s.
The company has said it plans to build 112 Dreamliners during the first two years, 2007-08. But beyond that it has been tight-lipped, saying it’s still studying the optimum rate. The issue, executives say, is less a matter of what Boeing is able to do in Everett, and more one of what makes sense for suppliers.
“The real important tent poles are at the partners. We’re trying to understand the capacity that each one has,” 787 program chief Mike Bair said. “It’s the tape-laying machines and tools and autoclaves.”
With lagging sales of the Airbus A350 and with the likelihood that there won’t be a competing jet from Toulouse available until 2012, there’s lots of incentive for Boeing to build more jets faster, Brigante said.
“Boeing’s position: the more I sell up to 2012, the more market share I get,” Brigante said.
But for suppliers, the question is can Boeing sustain high 787 sales long enough for them to recoup their spending for more people and equipment? he said. “Once you make the investment for a certain rate, how long is it going to last?”
Boeing’s never confirmed it, but it’s been widely reported that the company initially planned to deliver seven Dreamliners a month from Everett. This summer, various suppliers said Boeing had asked them to study whether it was possible to ramp up to do 14 or even 16 a month.
Alenia already plans to run three shifts of workers at Grottaglie and simply cannot increase capacity enough to meet some of the rates under discussion, Brigante said. The company designed the factory to handle higher rates, “but not what we are looking at today.”
But Alenia does have room at Grottaglie to expand, Brigante said. That was one of the big reasons for locating the plant there.
Last month, Boeing’s top salesman, Scott Carson, told the Everett Area Chamber of Commerce that the company had decided to increase 787 production to 10 jets a month as soon as possible.
Bair wouldn’t confirm that, but said “it’s fair to say the answer is higher, not lower.”
However, the rate’s not likely to increase dramatically until 2011 or later, he said – after Boeing and its partners have finished adding the tooling they’ll need to build all the proposed versions of the 787.
No one expected the 787 would sell this well, Brigante said. “We didn’t. I don’t think Boeing did.”
“It is a big challenge for us, to do the first one, to ramp up first and to consider going more,” he said. “We are all proud. We want to be on these programs with high rates.”
Working together
By creating this partnership to build the 787, Boeing has “created a small Airbus between us, Vought and the Japanese,” Brigante said. It’s a consortium of companies, just like the early Airbus was an amalgam of separate European firms.
This new partnership is working very closely now, but “it was not easy,” he said.
Alenia and Vought had close ties before the 787, but “with the Japanese, it was not so immediate.” The companies had to build trust, Brigante said, but once they did, the relationship “became collaborative.
“In the end, it’s going to be better this way,” he said.
Other executives stressed the same thing.
“We work with Boeing but we share,” said Guglielmo Caruso, Alenia’s 787 director. “I really can guarantee that we really are working together. We work in a global collaborative environment.”
“The priority for us is the same priority for Boeing,” CEO Bertoleone added. “It’s a new way of working together.”
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
Home to Alenia Aeronautica’s new 787 factory.
Alenia Aeronautica will create the 787’s two center fuselage sections and its horizontal stabilizer, using Europe’s largest autoclave.
Work flow: The completed parts will be flown to South Carolina, where Global Aeronautica will put the fuselage together with sections from Japan. The horizontal stabilizer will be shipped through South Carolina to Everett.
Work force: About 325 people now, growing to about 480 by 2008.
Facilities: The new factory is 690,000 square feet. Alenia also is essentially doubling the length of Grottaglie airport’s 5,600-foot runway, and building a taxiway to allow 747 large cargo freighters to wheel right up to the building.
Notable: Alenia transplanted a grove of more than 1,000 ancient olive trees to make room for its new buildings.
Quotable: “We are all proud. We want to be on these programs with high rates” – David Brigante, director of commercial airplane programs, Alenia Aeronautica.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
