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Technology Stocks : Boeing keeps setting new highs! When will it split? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: campe who wrote (1891)	10/23/1998 2:18:00 PM
From: Dale J.	Respond to of 3763

Boeing (NYSE:BA) sees no impact from defective parts Reuters, Friday, October 23, 1998 at 07:36 By Martin Wolk SEATTLE, Oct 22 (Reuters) - A bad batch of electrical connector boxes has disrupted production on some Boeing Co assembly lines, but the company expects no financial impact, executives said Thursday. The batch of 20,000 defective connectors from an unidentified foreign supplier was discovered by quality control engineers in early October after some already had been installed but before any of the jets had been delivered, Boeing executives said. "We have not delivered any airplanes with the defective parts, and it's confined to the airplanes we have in production," Boeing commercial airplane group President Alan Mulally told reporters in a conference call. "We feel like this is a manageable situation." Boeing President Harry Stonecipher said the company is fully reserved for any possible additional costs stemming from the defective parts, which are being replaced. The connectors, used for everything from seat-back entertainment systems to flight controls, are little bigger than a marble and as many as 510 may be installed on a single jet, depending on the model. The main models affected are next-generation 737s and 777s, while some models do not use the part at all, Boeing spokeswoman Yvonne Leach said. "Right now we haven't had any delivery delays," she said. Mulally also told reporters the company still expects to assemble some 737s at its Long Beach plant as previously announced, although the work will not begin until February, several months later than planned. And he said the plan could change depending on overall production requirements. Mulally, who took over the troubled commercial airplane group Sept. 1, has virtually halted any major changes while his new management team completes a reassessment of production efficiency with an aim of restoring the unit to profitability. In the latest example, a massive effort to change the way Boeing tracks parts for each plane it builds has been pushed back at least four months, spokeswoman Cris McHugh said. The so-called DCAC-MRM program began in 1994 with the goal of using massive new computer databases to replace a system of hand-entering identification information for each part. The third phase of the project, which was to begin Nov. 2, now has been pushed back to March 1, 1999, as the company focuses on delivering a record 180 airplanes this quarter, McHugh said. As a result the final phase of what McHugh called "the largest engineering project of its kind in the world," will begin sometime after its scheduled target of late 1999.