747 - Queen of the Sky Goes Digital
By Jim D. Green, 747 Airplane-Level Integration Team

As the 747 continues its legendary journey as the most recognized and prestigious airplane in the sky, Boeing continues to evolve and improve the product for the future. Improvements include: the Longer Range 747-400 (AKA "the 910K airplane" because of the 910,000 pound maximum takeoff weight); new interior (similar to the new 767 and 777 interiors); and the cabin equipment standardization (to standardize wire bundle runs and electrical equipment installations, some of the most variable components of the aircraft). These, along with other product improvements, will propel the legend of the 747 well into the future.

Per Boeing Commercial Airplanes policy, all new design must be done using CATIA and the cross-platform Spatial Integration process. These processes have enabled Boeing to reduce rejection tags and improve product quality for our customers. Expensive physical mockups for the 747 program have been deactivated and dismantled, saving the 747 program millions in facilities and labor cost. Digital pre-assembly (DPA) volumes are defined and all airplane commodities within the volumes are creating 3D solid models to support interference, interface, producibility, and maintainability analysis.

Entry into digital product definition began with the 747 Accurate Fuselage Assembly program, implemented a few years ago, where body super panels were digitized and redesigned. The results were:

• integration of build process requirements into the engineering product definition
• better fit of parts, reducing rejectable conditions
• reduction of flow through the factory
• and stability of the build process

These improvements combine to achieve lower production costs and a better product delivered on time to our customers.

Continually improving the 747-product line, Boeing is creating the Longer Range 747-400 using proven digital product definition processes and tools. 747 designers and leadership have been trained in the digital processes that are required to achieve their design/build/support business objectives. This is as much of a culture change as it is a technology change for the 747 team. Analysts, designers, manufacturing engineers, tool designers, quality engineers, reliability and maintainability engineers, are all affected when moving to digital product definition and the digital pre-assembly processes. The rich digital product definition environment enables concurrent product definition so that along with the part definition, manufacturing plans, tool design, quality inspection processes, and support plans can be generated and validated digitally, before any parts are created.

Boeing is solving many challenges with entry of 747 program into CATIA:

• large scale spatial integration (hundreds of designers, millions of parts)
• manufacturing simulation (3D build simulation as opposed to physical mockup tryouts)
• integration with design that is not in CATIA (converting design from Mylar to CATIA solids)
• tens of thousands of digital part interferences to disposition and fix in CATIA, prior to the build of the parts (This is good! Better to fix on the computer than in the factory!)

The 747 program is the last of Boeing Commercial Airplanes to leave the world of physical mockup and enter the world of digital pre-assembly. Ironically, the 747 program was one of the first commercial airplanes to pilot the DPA process using CATIA solid models in the late 1980s for a major redesign package. This led to the larger pilot on the 767 section 43, which paved the way for 100 percent digital product definition on the 777. Now in the digital world, the 747 is positioned for even more product and process improvements, all targeted to satisfy our airline customers' business needs.

Design work on new commercial aircraft will likely use the next generation of digital product definition tools: CATIA/ENOVIA/DELMIA V5, which will take us beyond ensuring parts fit together in the digital mockup, to ensuring full design/build/support integration, prior to cutting any chips.

To hear more, Jim will be presenting at the COE Fall 2001 Conference in Orlando, Florida, September 30-October 3.

Contact Jim Green - 747 Airplane Level Integration Team, Spatial Integration Team Leader -james.green@pss.boeing.com.

Back to Top