Boeing expanding city plant

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This article was published 02/11/2023 (703 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Boeing continues to show its love for Winnipeg. The American commercial airplane giant is investing another $20 million in Winnipeg to expand its composite parts manufacturing facility.

The new 12,000-square-foot expansion underway will house a 7,500-square-foot freezer, doubling the current capacity.

It’s the first expansion since 2013 when the company built an additional 150,000 square feet to accommodate work on the then new 737 Max aircraft.

At 700,000 square feet, Boeing Winnipeg is the largest composite manufacturing facility in the country and likely the largest composites aircraft parts plant in the world.

The composite parts manufacturing process requires the raw composite material — a combination of graphite and fiberglass — to remain frozen until just before it is cut and shaped into the more than 500 parts that the Winnipeg facility makes.

Teri Thompson, the new general manager of Boeing Canada Winnipeg, said, “This new freezer structure will transform our production system and contribute to a more sustainable operation.”

Among other things, the new freezer building will have its own dedicated area to thaw the material before it goes into production. Currently, the material is thawed in the general production area.

Thompson said the impetus was to improve efficiencies but it will also reduce energy consumption by 20 per cent as well as reducing emissions using more modern freezer technology.

Boeing’s Winnipeg facility makes parts for every single Boeing commercial jet in production.

Thompson said, “At any given time there are thousands of airplanes in the sky with parts on them built right here in Winnipeg.”

One of the largest of those parts is the main landing gear doors for the 787.

Although Boeing had to announce last month that it was reducing the production rate for the popular 737 — because of quality issues at another supplier — Thompson said that does not mean the Winnipeg shop will have to reduce its production rate.

And as global demand for air travel continues to grow in the post-pandemic era, Boeing will likely have to grow its workforce in Winnipeg which was nearing 1,600 before COVID and had been fairly steady for many years not counting a slight downsizing during the pandemic.

Although the new freezer expansion will not require additional employees — which number about 1,400 in Winnipeg right now — Thompson said the rising demand for commercial aviation will mean the Winnipeg plant will be on the lookout for more workers in the near future.

Pierre Ruel, the director of strategy and policy for Boeing Canada based in Ottawa, said industry experts estimate there will be demand for 42,000 new commercial aircraft in the next 20 years.

Wendell Wiebe, CEO of Manitoba Aerospace, said the latest investment commitment from Boeing is a good sign of the health of the aerospace sector in Manitoba.

“This news gives me the impression they want to stay here and they want to grow,” said Wiebe. “We provide as much support as we can, the government has come to the table on a number of occasions and this plant remains a key part of the Boeing supply chain.”

Wiebe said he has heard rumblings of other projects that will mean Boeing will continue to grow in Manitoba where it has been since 1971.

He said that’s good news for Manitoba and will enhance the profile of Manitoba’s aerospace sector, the third largest in the country.

Boeing, StandardAero and Magellan Aerospace account for about 80 per cent of the sector’s workforce.

StandardAero does engine maintenance repair and overhaul for all sorts of aircraft engine and Magellan does various aerospace-related manufacturing work, including making parts for the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet fighters. Canada finally committed to the F-35, announcing at the beginning of this year that it would be buying 88 of them.

“There is some really good stuff that’s happening here in Winnipeg,” Wiebe said.

The sod turning event brought out the mayor and the province’s brand new premier.

Speaking at the sod turning in front of a good crowd of workers outside on a cold morning, Premier Wab Kinew, whose father-in-law works at the Boeing plant, said, “Our team is big believers in what our province can do when we put the workers first. Our commitment to everyone here is that the provincial legislature will work hard each and every day to bring more jobs, more opportunities and more money to support working people in Manitoba.”

Winnipeg is, by far, Boeing’s largest operation in Canada, which it estimates contributes about $4 billion annually in economic benefits to Canada.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca