Boeing Factory Visit

My long standing aspiration after I moved to the Northwest, was to visit the Boeing factory. Boeing has an assembly unit in Everett, WA, about 30 miles north of Seattle. A tour is conducted every hour from the new Future of Flight museum to the actual manufacturing area and back. The tour is 15 bucks per adult and lasts roughly an hour. The Boeing factory is located adjacent to the Snohomish county/Paine field airport, whose runway is leased to Boeing.

Be half hour early to the tour so that you can take a look around the future of flight building. The building has illustrations about the history of Boeing, composition changes in materials used to construct flights over the years and an insight into the future (Boeing 7E7/787). The building houses a Pratt and Whitney engine that can deliver 75k hp of power to a Boeing 777. The engine is about 10 ft in diameter. Other attractions are the tail fin of a 747 jumbo and a presentation showing its assembly process.

The tour starts with a 7 minute video that shows the assembly of a Boeing 777 aircraft from scratch. The tour guide then directs people to board a bus that takes us into the main assembly unit. Some highlights and facts from the tour:

1. The Everett establishment manufactures only wide bodied Boeing aircrafts (747,767,777 and 787 in future)
2. Each assembly shed/hangar has a tunnel for utility supplies. Special reinforcement is provided for all concrete structure so that it can bear the weight of the aircrafts.
3. It takes around 7 months for a Boeing 777 aircraft delivery once an order is placed.
4. The downpayment for a Boeing 777 is 1/3rd its value (a whooping 200 million USD is the cost)
5. The temperature inside the assembly sheds is around 62-70 F even in the coldest winter because of the lights and machinery on the shop floor.
6. At a given time 7 aircrafts of the same type can be assembled.
7. The assembly sheds are around 3-4 miles in perimeter. They give you some facts about it in the tour.
8. Factory floor workers work in 3 shifts round the clock and are paid on an hourly basis.

Co-ordinating such a huge factory floor would be a painful task and lot of credit should go to the Boeing shop floor management for maintaining sanity and ensuring six sigma quality. After the assembly sheds, the aircraft is taken to a paint hanger on the opposite side of the freeway for painting via a bridge. The aircraft is shipped across the freeway in the night so that it doesn't disrupt traffic. The bridge is reinforced to bear the weight of the aircraft. They also show some of the aircraft testing areas on the tour. After all this, the customer comes by, pays the entire amount and picks up their brand new aircraft that is ready for operation. The guide is quite affable and answers all the questions you have. The sad part is that no photography is allowed. I'm not sure if it is for security reasons or that the lights may distract the employees on the floor. However, I did find a photograph on the web.

In short, A must-go-once tour.

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