Boeing’s Humans Step In After Robots Fumble 777 Jet Assembly
- Planemaker will rely instead on people assisted by machines
- Droid problems ‘took years off my life” said production chief
Employees perform quality checks on components for a Boeing Co. 777X commercial aircraft at the Boeing Defense, Space & Security facility in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
Photographer: Alex FLynn/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Score one for the humans. After four years of trial and error, Boeing Co. is dumping one of its most ambitious forays into automation: the robots that build two main fuselage sections for its 777 jetliners and an upgraded version known as the 777X.
Instead, the Chicago-based planemaker will rely on skilled mechanics to manually insert fasteners into holes drilled along the circumference of the airplane by an automated system known as “flex tracks,” which it has honed over years of use on the 787 Dreamliner.