Manufacturing ramp-ups can be tricky, as the global commercial-aircraft industry well remembers from the great Boeing production foul-up of 1997. After trying to increase its delivery rates far faster than suppliers could handle, the manufacturer had to take the drastic steps of halting the 737 assembly line and suspending 747 production altogether. Seventeen years later, Boeing has booked orders for 286 units of the new 777X in 10 months; it must want to ramp up as quickly as possible to at least the current, historically fast production rate of the 777-300ER, 8.3 a month. As it does so, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), very likely to be a major supplier, is determined that it will not be responsible for sending the program off course.
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