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A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

nytimes.com

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#41
post #31

This was the most striking part to me: "According to The Seattle Times, the starting rate at the Airbus plant, about $16.50 per hour, is comparable to the starting wages at Boeing’s passenger-plane plant in Renton, Wash. But the Airbus pay scale tops out at $23 an hour, while experienced Boeing workers can earn $45." We now have so much surplus labor that even this relatively skilled job only pays $16.50 an hour.

You're overestimating both the level of skill required to start and the cost of living in Alabama.

Alabama is CHEAP, and taxes are very low.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#42
post #7

Looking at those pictures I wonder how assembly, from unloading cargo to final testing, could be fully automated. I came to think that until we automate automation it will be quite hard. Humans with assist of tools are flexible enough - especially on this scale.

The question is how much of it should be automated that isn't already. It's not like they're building 737s and A321s for everyone - at some point, human labor just makes better business sense, though I admit I have no idea where those lines are - I don't have the factory experience to tell you.

It's also likely they'd pretty significantly redesign a lot of the parts if they were going for more automation - a lot of aircraft construction is done in a way that makes it difficult even for humans to get decent access - the robots to get into those kinds of tight spaces to work would look more appropriate on the International Space Station, and may not be much faster at the job due to all of the extra maneuvering to get in and out of tight spaces. (In fact, on most existing aircraft designs, to do much with robots you'd almost certainly need a human operator standing by just to make sure it didn't accidentally punch through a firewall or the tin can hull, since a lot of assembly steps require moving fixtures around and installing temporaries for support, which may be more ad-hoc than planned procedure.

As an example of design and construction philosophies, both Boeing and Airbus have adopted a more "outside-in" approach to building aircraft, where the principal components of the airframe are built first and everything is fastened to them as construction evolves. This is a very human- and aircraft-centric construction philosophy, since it means the workers need to move around the plane a lot, rather than the plane's components coming to the workers. This works better with the scales in mind, since the aircraft are already constructed in some of the largest buildings on the planet, and moving large assemblies around a lot during construction means employee downtime and slower delivery performance.

But what if instead they took a tunnel building-like approach where the interior would be mostly assembly-line built in ring sections, fastened together into modular inner compartments, and then fitted to external fuselage pieces before everything is snapped together in one big final assembly step? The smaller sections work better for both humans and automation, and the larger pieces snapping together Lego-like means you can even reduce the need for as many large assembly buildings down to just final assembly. It could possibly be much better for composite construction, as it would mean fewer external seams on the aircraft (which in turn must suck for the carbon fiber engineers, since it means even larger autoclaves and components they would have to deal with), which in turn gives you even more of the advantages you already are seeing on planes like the Dreamliner (plus likely a much quieter cabin, since it would be better separated and insulated from the hull, and fewer fasteners means less vibration noise generated as well as shorter assembly times).

Of course, Boeing and Airbus are huge companies with lots of extreme long term planning when it comes to budgeting and logistics, so I doubt if either company will make revolutionary strides in this direction rather than evolutionary strides. With product deliveries over multiple decades and lifecycles approaching a century, it's easy to see why these companies are conservative and evolutionary.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#43
post #27

These are some massive sub-assemblies being carted all over the world...it's surprising to me that there aren't more localized efficiencies, or that this global Lego set doesn't always have more missing pieces than its worth. Rear Fuselage: Hamburg, Germany Vertical Stabilizer: Stade, Germany Forward Fuselage: Saint-Nazaire, France Wings: Broughton, Wales Engines: Middletown, Connecticuit Final Assembly: Mobile, Alab…

It's like this due to political reasons, nothing to do with eficiency.

But doesn't a business have to, at some point, meet a minimum level of efficiency to still be viable? Do subsidies and mandates make up for all that slack?

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#44
post #36
post #7

Looking at those pictures I wonder how assembly, from unloading cargo to final testing, could be fully automated. I came to think that until we automate automation it will be quite hard. Humans with assist of tools are flexible enough - especially on this scale.

I think it would be pointless to try to automate the assembly of airliners completely. These aircraft cost in the order of $100M and they are produced in the thousands across many years for the most successful models. And it is likely to stay this way, it's not like if someday, we'll all have our own personal Airbus. The economies of scale don't justify a fully automatic assembly line.

Not only that, but even what an outsider might think of as the same plane is unique per customer. Qantas wants the holes for the lavs here, while JAL doesn't care because they are going to use it for an all cattle class commuter flight.

The manufacturers fight it, but at the end of the day the customer is always right.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#45
post #31

This was the most striking part to me: "According to The Seattle Times, the starting rate at the Airbus plant, about $16.50 per hour, is comparable to the starting wages at Boeing’s passenger-plane plant in Renton, Wash. But the Airbus pay scale tops out at $23 an hour, while experienced Boeing workers can earn $45." We now have so much surplus labor that even this relatively skilled job only pays $16.50 an hour.

Unions. Alabama doesn't have effective unions. You'll see similar differences in top-end pay in other Right to Work states compared to states like Washington with more effective unions and greater ability of employees to participate in collective bargaining.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#46
post #42
post #7

Looking at those pictures I wonder how assembly, from unloading cargo to final testing, could be fully automated. I came to think that until we automate automation it will be quite hard. Humans with assist of tools are flexible enough - especially on this scale.

The question is how much of it should be automated that isn't already. It's not like they're building 737s and A321s for everyone - at some point, human labor just makes better business sense, though I admit I have no idea where those lines are - I don't have the factory experience to tell you. It's also likely they'd pretty significantly redesign a lot of the parts if they were going for more automation - a lot of a…

They are already built like that. In Boeing parlance it is called a section. Smaller sections are built and then joined together at final assembly.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#47
post #31

This was the most striking part to me: "According to The Seattle Times, the starting rate at the Airbus plant, about $16.50 per hour, is comparable to the starting wages at Boeing’s passenger-plane plant in Renton, Wash. But the Airbus pay scale tops out at $23 an hour, while experienced Boeing workers can earn $45." We now have so much surplus labor that even this relatively skilled job only pays $16.50 an hour.

And we are all talking about globalization being the culprit which to me is a huge distraction from the actual problem: automation. I wonder if it's not a bigger part of the national debate because it would require politics to say that currently unemployed likely will remain not needed and call for something like basic income guarantee which is in essence a gateway to something very similar to communism.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#48
post #11

It's surprising to me how small the cargo-hold is. I've always imagined it to be a lot bigger, but now that I think about it (having seen it), it makes a lot of sense..

Yes, I went through the same process, obviously in hindsight it is a tube, all that can remain is the bottom half of the circle underneath the floor. Fascinating look at those part assembled planes. Interesting how a politics is just as 'real' as economics - the plane is purposefully built around the EU to spread the jobs and buy in from member nations, why not include the US in that too? With the UK leaving the EU I…

> the plane is purposefully built around the EU to spread the jobs and buy in from member nations, why not include the US in that too?

Four EU countries, soon to be only three. That's not purposefully spread, but the result of history and politics.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#49
post #24

I'm disappointed American Airlines don't buy all Boeing planes, especially given their name. Although Airbus planes do have some American parts on them, they're mostly European. Considering they got USD$15 Billion in bailout money from the US Government, and just how good Boeing planes are at a very similar price point, supporting manufacturing in their country of origin seems like the right thing to do.

AA are just going to buy whatever deal is the best on offer in order to help their market competitiveness i.e. ticket prices.

That, and I also heard from an Airbus engineer friend, that airlines try to diversify their planes so that in case a specific plane model is grounded by the FAA (or equivalent) the impact is less severe.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#50
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like this due to political reasons, nothing to do with eficiency.

But doesn't a business have to, at some point, meet a minimum level of efficiency to still be viable? Do subsidies and mandates make up for all that slack?

It's not just subsidies and mandates, it's large government contracts on maybe not actually needed systems. See the F-35 as an example of this, which has parts manufactured in a majority of states meaning it's impossible for congress to nix this sort of program because it would cost constituents jobs. Also how it makes it harder for congressmen and women to vote against these sorts of deals because it would cost their constituents future jobs.

I don't know about Airbus in particular but this is how it generally work with companies like Lockheed and Boeing.

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