Bert Caldwell: Boeing needs to work on streamlining

Washington’s aerospace industry is working on its ground game.

Again resurgent, Boeing Co. and its hundreds of suppliers are organizing to make sure state officials heed their concerns, including taxation and education. They formed the Aerospace Futures Alliance of Washington earlier this year.

In Spokane, manufacturers have coalesced around the Inland Northwest Aerospace Consortium. Barely seven months old, the group has grown from five to more than 30 members. An equal number may be in the business, but not members.

Co-organizer Mike Mooney says members want to piggyback on the Puget Sound area’s reputation as a global aerospace manufacturing center. Boeing orders have swamped suppliers on the West Side, he says. If Inland Northwest companies can establish themselves as reliable alternatives, not only will they prosper, but still more companies will be attracted to the area.

“We really think there is a good core here,” says Mooney, purchasing manager for Triumph Composites. Triumph makes floor panels and other components for Boeing and its European competitor, Airbus.

But success depends, in part, on the ability of local manufacturers to meet global quality benchmarks. Many also need Boeing certification. Without those seals of approval, Spokane companies are forced to buy Kaiser Aluminum metal produced at Trentwood from a Seattle distributor who ships the material to Spokane for machining or other work. Then the part might go back to Seattle for plating before it returns to Spokane for final processing.

The result is higher costs and longer lead times.

The Spokane group has reached out to the Aerospace Futures Alliance, or AFA, for help negotiating the quality-control maze.

Friday, Executive Director Linda Lanhamwas in Spokane with two Boeing executives.

Lanham, former political director for the Machinists union, says there is too much going on in aerospace to put relationships with Olympia on auto-pilot. The industry, for example, badly needs state help training skilled workers.

One of the organization’s priorities is the hiring of an aerospace liaison within the office of Gov. Chris Gregoire. The Legislature created the position in 2003, when it authorized tax abatements and other measures to assure the 787 would be built in Washington. But a likely oversight left the position dark, an error that was corrected this year. Still, no one has been named for the job.

“With all that’s going on in the aerospace industry, you need it now more than ever,” Lanham says. “It’s just taking longer than we’d like to fill it.”

She says the industry wants someone knowledgeable in the position. With a salary to match.

“If you want a qualified person, you need to pay them well,” says Lanham, who adds that Gregoire has been supportive.

The Boeing executives talked about the company’s prospects, and met with local aerospace industry representatives anxious to increase sales to Boeing and its subcontractors.

Vice President Bob Watt’s presentation included a slide of the Large Cargo Freighter Boeing will use to fly whole fuselage assemblies to its Everett plant. The modified 747, which looks like it swallowed the space shuttle, will change the aerospace industry by making it possible to source aircraft components anywhere in the world, he said.

Although Watt suggested the plane could pull Inland Northwest manufacturers closer to the ring of Boeing suppliers, he also acknowledged the company could use it to outsource more work to Asia and Europe. Wing and fuselage assemblies for the hot-selling 787 are taking shape in Italy, China and Japan.

Watt says Boeing and its suppliers must constantly improve because struggling Airbus will eventually sort out its problems.

“Three years ago,” he noted, “people were worried we would perish.”

Nobody’s writing Boeing’s epitaph now. The company rules the skies. It’s the ground rules that concern Spokane aerospace leaders.