At the factory that builds the 737 Max, Boeing is rethinking how it trains its new recruits

RENTON, Wash. — Boeing assembles the 737 here in a massive factory that can hold more than a dozen unfinished planes, their shiny green fuselages lined up from nose to tail.

But before Boeing’s new recruits get to work on those planes, they spend a few months next door, at Boeing’s training center, learning the basics.

“Everything has a name, everything has a measure, everything has a place. And the details are just mind-blowing,” said Derrick Farmer, who has about two months of training at Boeing.

Farmer worked as an aircraft mechanic in the Army, helping keep Boeing helicopters in the air for nine years. Now that he’s learning how to build the planes, Farmer says the level of detail is very important, even to him.

“Every bolt, every washer, every rivet,” he said. “Everything counts.”

Boeing has embarked on a hiring spree, adding thousands of new workers to make up for experienced employees who left in droves during the COVID pandemic.

Boeing has changed the way it trains new recruits at the factory where it assembles the 737 Max, part of a broader effort to improve quality control after a door protection panel exploded mid-flight on a relatively new aircraft. This week, the company gave reporters a rare glimpse inside its 737 factory near Seattle — the same factory where one or more Boeing workers failed to reinstall four key bolts that were supposed to hold that panel in place. door protection in place.

“I am extremely confident that the steps we have taken have ensured that every aircraft leaving this factory is safe,” said Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality. “I am confident this will not happen again.”

Lund says Boeing has made many changes since the door jam incident. The company has added new steps to ensure work is done in the right order and is properly documented.

And Lund says Boeing is rethinking how the company trains new hires.

“It worked before when we didn’t have a large number of new people,” she told reporters this week. But with so many new people coming on board, Lund says they weren’t getting as much on-the-job training from experienced employees.

“Having that person who is there with them, who helps them do their job. That relationship wasn’t as strong as it used to be,” she said.

Boeing responded by creating a formal mentoring program, Lund said. He added several more weeks of basic training, from a maximum of 12 weeks previously to 14 now. And the company is revising its training materials to make them more practical.

“We definitely incorporated more reps, a lot more practice reps,” said Kayla Abusham, a trainer in the electrical department.

“It’s a lot more complex,” Abusham said, requiring interns to focus on the details of how they record work as they go, “just like they would in the field.” »

At another station in the training center, Zach Jackson shows reporters the proper way to drill holes in sheet metal. Jackson started working at Boeing in 1978. He left in the 1990s. And then I decided to come back a few years ago to help train the next generation.

“I love this place. That’s why I’m still here. I’m here to help,” Jackson said. “My son works here now. He never wanted to work for Boeing, but I did. convinced. “

How did Jackson convince him?

“I showed him my salary,” he says, laughing.

Boeing is not the only company in the aerospace sector that has lost a lot of experience on the shop floor. The same goes for Spirit AeroSystems, a key supplier that builds the 737 fuselage in Wichita, Kan.

Boeing is in talks to buy most of Spirit, by buying back the factory that it had sold almost 20 years ago.

The two companies have already made some changes to reduce the number of production errors before the fuselages arrive at the Boeing factory.

“You can see right above the door here, there’s a piece of orange tape,” said Katie Ringgold, vice president and general manager of Boeing’s 737 program, and manager of the factory where the jets are assembled.

Ringgold points to a piece of tape marking a single rivet on the fuselage of a production plane that protrudes too far from the skin. But overall, Ringgold says problems with the new fuselages have diminished in recent months.

“While it’s not perfect yet, we have seen a significant reduction in defects detected here and caused by our supplier,” Ringgold said.

Federal regulators have limited monthly production of Boeing’s 737s to 38 planes, and Ringgold says the company is making even fewer.

“My objective is not the rate. My goal is to stabilize this plant with the safety and quality changes that are paramount,” she said.

Ultimately, Boeing will have to ramp up production if it wants to satisfy airlines hungry for new planes, not to mention investors and Wall Street analysts.

But for now, company executives say their priority is making sure every bolt and rivet is perfect.