Today we went to the Boeing factory located in Mukilteo, around 15 miles north of Seattle. The tour we took started at 1 PM and lasted for a little more than an hour. At the beginning of the tour they were supposed to show a movie but due to some problem with the systems today, the movie was not shown and we directly started with the tour. We got on a Boeing bus that drove us to the main plant which happens to be listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest building in the world by volume!
- The factory covers a whopping 98.3 acres under one roof – big enough to fit 911 basketball courts.
- The ceiling is nearly 9 storeys (90 feet) above the factory floor.
- Each of the hangar doors (the blue doors seen in the pic below) is nearly the size of a US football field!
When we got off the bus, we climbed down the stairs to one of the underground service tunnels that was .33 miles in length covering the breadth of the building. On the tour we learnt other interesting facts:
- Boeing does not deliver the planes to its customers, but they are supposed to pick them up
- When the planes are ready for pick up, they fly directly to an airport and get into service – no downtime!
- Boeing accepts only cash payments for all the sales – no visa or mastercards – means no credit extended
- 1/3rd of the payment is taken at the time of order, another 1/3rd after the plane is ready and the remainder after the acceptance test
- During the delivery process for each plan, a meeting is held and 2400 pages of documentation is gone through to check off on each item
- Boeing can produce as many as 7 planes per assembly line in a month but usually production does not occur at that capacity
- 787 is the new Boeing plane that has been designed which is 20% lower in cost and 20% more fuel efficient
Overall the tour was okay and nothing out of this world apart from the sheer size of the buildings and doors we got to see. Truly speaking, I think I enjoyed the Maruti factory tour in Gurgaon (as part of my management studies at IILM, New Delhi) more than I enjoyed the Boeing factory tour.