A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line • Hacker News Board

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#71

Post by JustAnotherPat » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:33 PM UTC

prplhaz4 wrote: post #25

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…

You probably need a decent amount of engineers at each of those locations. Different types of engineers. I doubt you can convince enough of them to move to Mobile. Plus at the end of the day, how much more does it cost to ship assembled pieces vs. raw material?

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#72

Post by valuearb » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

byroot wrote: post #49

nbevans wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's impossible.

Edit: As CoreDog said, it would be a cost nightmare. Already airlines would suffer massively if any type is grounded. Ground 737s or A321s? It would be like 9-11 all over again, shut down most every flight of almost every airline.

Even grounding a specific version of a type, like 737-700 would be difficult to handle for the airlines that fly them. Alaska would have to cancel nearly 10% of their flights. And it's hard to imagine how the FAA could ground the 737-700 and not the 737-800 at the same time given they are almost identical, which would ground 2/3s of Alaska's fleet.

Airlines can consolidate their fleets around a few specific models because it's super cost effective, and the chances of grounding any single model are virtually nil. 737s and A3xx have flown many billions of miles safely since their last incident, it's almost impossible to imagine a problems so urgent and dangerous it would require grounding an entire fleet of planes that flies safely every single day.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#73

Post by pdelbarba » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #64

bigtones wrote: post #20

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.

> supporting manufacturing in their country of origin seems like the right thing to do Where do you think Mobile, Alabama is?

Realistically though, if you buy IKEA furniture and assemble it at home, it's not "made in my bedroom". The vast majority of the value created in the process of of creating an A321 will be overseas. Assembling it here is just a gimmick, for better or for worse.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#74

Post by sandworm101 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:38 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #18

sandworm101 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im waiting for "one third of factory jobs require a four-year degree" before getting to excites about cerebral natures. There are a great number of people with degrees out there. I want to see that the jobs require the education to do the work, not that market forces mean that unnecessary degrees make an applicant more competative.

How would you tell the difference?

The job postings say "must have undergraduate in X".

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#75

Post by coredog64 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:40 PM UTC

keehun wrote: post #40

jamiek88 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> 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. But see that's the part that got me. I subconsciously thought (without logic) that the passenger cabin part is the upper half and the cargo is just as big as the top half. Actually, the passenger side is much more than the half, and it looks like they've crammed in a…

Unit load devices (e.g. an LD3) have standardized dimensions, so you don't get much by having a taller cargo hold than any other widebody. At best you want to ensure that a person can stand up (or mostly stand up) in the cargo hold as it makes operations easier.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#76

Post by Ohmycosh » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:40 PM UTC

keehun wrote: 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..

Bear in mind that the A321 is a small-ish plane. The A380 has a huge cargo hold in comparison.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#77

Post by strictnein » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #6

> Almost a third of American factory workers now hold four-year college degrees, a trend that reflects the increasingly cerebral nature of the work. Wow.

There was an article a couple months ago about this.

> “People on the plant floor need to be much more skilled than they were in the past. There are no jobs for high school graduates at Siemens today.”

These jobs also pay well (for factory work). $40k for a starting job at a John Deere factory. $50-$80k pay range at a Siemens factory.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/education/edlife/factory-...

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#78

Post by sgift » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #69

sgift wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprisingly, there was a report a few years ago that the distributed nature of Airbus also was more efficient. But yeah, it's mainly for political reasons.

Pretty sure that report was for political reasons as well.

It was an independent report that compared Boeing and Airbus, so I have my doubts.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#79

Post by UncleSlacky » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:42 PM UTC

bigtones wrote: post #20

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.

Boeing uses a pretty high proportion of non-US parts in its aircraft too, these days. This was one of the reasons that they had so many teething troubles with the 787.

Re: A Look Inside Airbus’s Alabama Assembly Line

#80

Post by coredog64 » Wed, May 03, 2017, 3:43 PM UTC

Gravityloss wrote: post #12

hawski wrote: 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 structure could be different. For example with latest composites you can assemble the dry fibers, maybe with some stitching to keep them in place, wrap them in a bag and use vacuum to infuse them with resin. No fasteners and large monolithic parts. Sometimes you need an autoclaves, sometimes not. Things like point loads would need to be designed out as much as possible. Likely because of large existing investment…

Large monolithic parts are harder to repair. That's the upside to the current setup of panels riveted to a frame. Any one of those panels can be drilled out and replaced. Boeing has a special team called "AOG" (aircraft on ground) that will go out to a repairable aircraft that isn't airworthy and make it so. Kind of hard to do that when you need to bring along a megaton autoclave and portable cleanroom.