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HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:

Dominic Gates reports at the Seattle Times that until this year, Boeing's Renton plant housed two highly productive assembly lines, each churning out 21 single-aisle 737's per month but in a rabbit-out-of-the-hat transformation, Boeing has now fitted a third assembly line within the same factory space [seattletimes.com] for the new 737 MAX that will allow the production rate in Renton to climb to 52 jets per month in 2018 and possibly past 60 per month by the end of the decade. “The complexity of this is not so much the changes in the airplane itself, but more about how you weave this new airplane into a factory [airwaysnews.com] that’s been producing (the current 737) for 19 years now,” says Keith Leverkuhn, vice president of the 737 MAX program. Leverkuhn says Boeing will build the first airplanes relatively slowly to understand all the intricacies of the new assembly process, then will ramp up quickly. “The first airplane went together very, very well. The second one is going together even better. This is the closest thing we’ve got to automotive production (rates),” says Leverkuhn. “We are going to have to hit 52 (jets per month), and it’s going to have to happen fast.”

The central innovation on the 737 MAX is the new LEAP engine [wikipedia.org], which promises to make the jet 14 percent more fuel-efficient than the current 737. The new family is based on the Boeing 737 Next Generation family, which it is to replace. It will be the fourth generation of the 737 family [wikipedia.org]. The bigger engine also necessitates new engine pods and strengthened wings. The MAX also introduces dramatic-looking forked wingtips and a reshaped tail cone — both adding aerodynamic efficiency — as well as larger flight displays in the cockpit. But all is not well at Boeing. Airbus is well ahead, with the first A320neo expected to be delivered by the end of this month. That lag leaves Boeing with “a product strategy problem,” according to Issaquah-based aviation analyst Scott Hamilton who says Airbus’ “commanding market share” means Boeing may be forced to launch a new airplane to replace the MAX [leehamnews.com] as early as 2019 — which would inevitably depress additional MAX sales and so reduce the return on all the investment it’s made in Renton. The trend seems to be accelerating. So far this year Airbus has won 822 A320neo orders, versus Boeing’s 292 for the Max [bizjournals.com], according to figures from both companies. “Never was Max on track to get ahead of neo...It’s always been behind the neo curve,” says Michel Merluzeau. “In past 200 days, Max sales have been relatively flat.”

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