Boeing 787: The consequence of using the latest technologies

This Friday the Wall Street Journal ran a story, Crisis at Boeing. A company that is a beacon in its industry for providing the most reliable planes is suffering a black eye after its flagship plane, the 787 Dreamliner caught fire. Launched in 2011, it has been plagued by supply chain problems, union strikes, and engineering nightmares. Most recently, two 63 pound batteries used to power critical components of the 787 caught fire after overheating. Lithium ion batteries, the same used in laptops have never been used for this type of application and because the plane's power distribution was centered around using these batteries, simply installing different types is out of the question. Using the latest technologies always presents a fundamental problem unknown repercussions. Aside from the 200,000 hours of test flying the company conducted not much else can be done other that to monitor the performance of its aircraft.

The FAA grounded all 787s until it can complete an investigation and Boeing come up with a fix for the problem. If they're able to engineer a fix quickly only the Brand may suffer some minor damage, but if the fix takes a significant amount of time, the profitability of this plane may be impacted for years to come. There are 50 planes in service as of now but all other airlines across the world have grounded their fleets in wake of this problem. Airlines have placed orders hundreds for these planes that can be subjected to cancellation if Boeing isn't able to rectify the situation quickly which may lead investors to punish Boeing by taking their investments elsewhere.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324624404578255302123044128.html?KEYWORDS=boeing