S.C. defends job training

Workers’ preparation questioned after Boeing delayed new airplane

State officials are standing behind the quality of training provided workers at the Vought and Global Aeronautica plants in North Charleston in the wake of Boeing’s decision to delay delivery of the Dreamliner aircraft by six months.

Workers at the plants are building the two aft sections of the new Boeing aircraft.

Those parts — along with wings from a factory in Japan, a horizontal tail section from Italy and the forward fuselage and crew section from a plant in Kansas — are then flown to Boeing’s manufacturing facility in Everett, Wash., for final assembly.

The Dreamliner is the first commercial aircraft made almost entirely of composite materials. On Wednesday, Boeing delayed the initial deliveries of the aircraft to late November or December of 2008, blaming problems in its global supply chain. The first delivery — to All Nippon Airways — had previously been set for next spring.

Some media reports — noticeably the Wall Street Journal — have indicated the relative unfamiliarity of the workers in North Charleston with aircraft manufacturing and the need to supplement their training are at least partially responsible for the delay.

“In some cases, such as with a factory that was erected in Charleston, S.C., by Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica SpA and Vought Industries Inc. of Dallas, relatively inexperienced workers were hired from the local area to begin building an airplane that is technically more advanced that any commercial airplane in history,” the Journal reported in its Thursday edition.

However, both Barry Russell, president of the S.C. Technical College System, and Russell Darnall, director of ReadySC, the division responsible for delivering training, stand behind the quality of training.

“This training team, located at Trident Technical College, continues to respond to the growing needs of the project, Darnall said. “Feedback from both Vought and Global Aeronautica indicates that we continue to meet and exceed all training specifications and requirements.”

Russell said that “we have been very pleased with the quality of the people we have been able to recruit and attract and put into the training programs there.”

As far as workers being inexperienced, Russell pointed out “there would not be an experienced work force anywhere in the world. This is the first commercial composite airplane ever built, so by definition anyone would be inexperienced. It has never been done before.”

The issue of the North Charleston operations was raised by Scott Carson, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in a conference call Wednesday.

“If there are any lessons to be learned, it might be that you start earlier and do a little more training there, perhaps with our people there helping them learn the production process.” There are still “growing pains at the front-end of the program,” he said during the call.

“But there’s no fundamental flaw in Charleston,” Carson said.

If there are some growing pains, it is simply related to growth, Russell said. The Charleston operations “are growing very quickly and the speed there has been pretty swift. But each time, they come back to us to recruit the new group and to train the new group,” he said.

ReadySC has worked with both Vought and Global Aeronautica to develop the training program and to modify it when requested, Russell said.

ReadySC has helped recruit and train 360 prospective workers for Global Aeronautica and Vought so far, said a program spokesman.

Of those 286 have been hired between the two companies and sent back for five more weeks of training by ReadySC.

Kara Borie, S.C. Department of Commerce spokeswoman, said, “ReadySC has successfully met the training needs of both Vought and Global Aeronautica. To see a plant of this size and a completely new work force trained to produce a revolutionary new product in a short of time is a remarkable feat.”