| The Boeing
Company plans to significantly reduce the time to install
the interior components of the 787 Dreamliner compared
to the time required for 777 aircraft installations. This
time reduction will yield lower production costs by enhancing
production efficiency. An emergency evacuation slide is
located on each of the eight main cabin doors. The current
method for installing emergency evacuation slides requires
three assembly mechanics and significantly more than five
minutes for each slide. The goal of the project is to
develop a tool and process that will allow one assembly
mechanic to install each of the eight emergency evacuation
slides in five minutes or less. The team conducted research,
design, and testing to meet the design requirements. To
allow the tool to be used in the 787 interiors assembly
process, it was designed to be durable, lightweight, inexpensive,
and easy to use and maintain. The new tool will allow
Boeing to achieve the assembly goal of five minutes per
slide with a single assembly mechanic. |
