Robert Noble goes back over the difficulties faced by the 787 Dreamliner programme.

In an interview with The Seattle Times, Robert Noble, Boeing’s vice-president in charge of the 787 Dreamliner supply chain, goes back over the difficulties faced by the programme. He admits that the past year has been “very, very stressful”. Though Boeing recently acknowledged that it had misjudged and mismanaged the supply chain at the start of the Dreamliner programme, Mr Noble asserts that “every aircraft I have worked on has had a parts problem when it started up”. In the past few weeks, he has been multiplying short trips around the world to visit suppliers: Hamilton Sundstrand, Spirit AeroSystems, VSMPOAvisma (Russia), etc. “You have got to be sure everyone down through the parts stream is ready to move up”, he explains. Mr Noble nonetheless expresses great confidence in the supply chain: “I have never lost faith in the aircraft and the production system ”. The Seattle Times (16/06)