Russian Engineers To Play Big Role On 747-8
Boeing will limit its hiring of local engineers for design of the 747-8, the new derivative of its iconic jumbo jet, and give a major role to engineers at Boeing's Moscow Design Center and at outside suppliers.

"It's a different model than we had 20 years ago, when we'd hire all the people and put them in a building in Seattle, and then have them all go away or try to find another project for them afterwards," said Jeff Peace, Boeing vice president and 747-8 program manager, in a teleconference program update with reporters Thursday.

"As a global company, we're recognizing and utilizing the world's capability in engineering."

Peace said Boeing is hiring engineers in the Puget Sound region, and eventually the number working here on the 747-8 will be "in the high 100s."

He did not project specific numbers of 747-8 engineers elsewhere.

On a more reassuring note for local workers, Peace said Boeing won't shift significant 747 production work from the region. The 747-8 is a new version of the 36-year-old jumbo jet; it will enter service as a freighter in late 2009 and as a passenger jet in 2010.

Boeing has so far secured orders only for the freighter version but anticipates its first passenger-model orders this year.

One key market is Japan, where Boeing hopes the 747-8 can help maintain its virtual monopoly despite the debut of the new Airbus A380 superjumbo.

All Nippon Airways is a potential buyer of the passenger model.

According to an industry expert in Japan who asked for anonymity, All Nippon will decide on a replacement for its 365-seat 747-400s in the summer and will choose between the 555-seat Airbus A380, the 365-seat Boeing 777-300ER and the new 450-seat Boeing 747-8.

As the 747-8 program approaches its second round of wind-tunnel tests, the program is drawing in engineers in Everett.

"We're in a period of relatively rapid increase in the engineering talent that's being applied to the program," Peace said.

"As we build up, we're looking at how people will be coming off the 787."

Still, Peace said those engineers in Puget Sound will "be leading a worldwide work force," including non-Boeing engineers.

He said the new 747 program will utilize engineering expertise developed around the world the past couple of years in designing the large converted 747 superfreighters that will transport parts of the new 787 across the globe.

Through that program, he said, both Boeing engineers in Moscow and non-Boeing engineers with outside suppliers gained "knowledge of the 747 design."

"Some will come to Seattle to start their work and then move elsewhere, some ... will stay at locations around the world," he said.

Charles Bofferding, executive director of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, said his union's goal is stable employment and that Boeing's desire to avoid the traditional hire/fire cycle could be a good thing if it follows the same logic in leaner times.

"The proof will be if in the future, management shows the same resolve in keeping people in the program they are now showing in keeping them off," Bofferding said.

Unlike the 787 program, where supplier plants in Italy, Japan and South Carolina will complete major sections of the aircraft, there is limited opportunity to further outsource actual production of the 747-8 beyond the fabrication of separate parts currently done on the 747-400.

"On the 787, we chose where to do things because it was going to be new wherever it was built," Peace said.

But the 747 program already has an established fabrication process, and current suppliers will get first choice on the new derivative.

The 747 wings are made in Everett, and that's where they'll stay, Peace said.

Roughly 40 percent of parts for the current 747-400 model are made by Boeing, the other 60 percent by suppliers including Dallas, Texas-based Vought and Wichita, Kan.-based Spirit Aerosystems.

That ratio is likely to remain similar on the new 747-8 derivative.

"I don't expect a fundamental shift of [production] work in Everett to other places," Peace said.