Boeing Booms Eastward -- New Spokane Plant Reflects Need To Spread Work Elsewhere

SPOKANE - Air ducts and floor panels for jetliners are beginning to flow out of The Boeing Co.'s new factory near Spokane International Airport to assembly plants in the Puget Sound area.

It's a modest operation compared with Boeing's plants west of the Cascades, and the setting is so serene there isn't even a traffic light in front of the five-acre complex along Highway 2.

The 120-acre site, seven miles from downtown Spokane, is a former pasture purchased in October 1988 and part of a large area zoned for industrial development. The setting is likely to change, but for now the contrast with Boeing plants in the Seattle area is striking. Puget Sound-area plants are surrounded by heavy traffic, acres of parking lots and rows of buses at peak hours.

Here, going to the stone-faced, three-story factory building with a big blue ``BOEING'' emblazoned on its office front is more like driving to a suburban country club for lunch.

Boeing chose Spokane as a site for a plant to help relieve some of the pressure on space requirements at its Auburn fabrication center. Dean Thornton, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group president, said in 1988, when announcing plans for the plant here, that his company liked Spokane's ``attractive labor pool and high work ethic.''

Considerable political and business pressure - led by then House Majority Leader Tom Foley, the Spokane Democrat who now is House speaker - also was put on Boeing to spread its operations to the Inland Empire.

The first air duct was produced in the new plant Aug. 9 and the first floor panel Oct. 15, said Phil Kelly, general manager. Workers now produce the floor panels mostly by hand. But by spring, automated equipment built by Ingersoll Milling Machine Co. of Rockford, Ill., and being installed now, will be in use.

The manufactured goods from Spokane will be used on every new Boeing jet, including the 777 twinjets, when the plant gets up to speed next year. These include fiberglass ducts that can range in size from small hoses to large air handlers, and specially shaped floor panels made from sandwiches of honeycombed material.

The finished products are trucked to Boeing assembly plants at Renton and Everett. By the end of this year, they will be shipped at a rate of 500 pieces a month, and by the end of 1991 at 5,000 a month, Kelly said.

Besides spreading work around the state - Boeing also is planning a new plant in South Tacoma to build wing parts and at least one other plant near its Everett site - this $23 million complex is an experiment in building a new corporate culture. If the plant is successful, Thornton said, the lessons learned in Spokane may be applied throughout the company.

Team management, rather than the traditional ``top-down'' style, is being tried as a way to increase productivity and keep the work force happy, Kelly said. Team management encourages every worker to have a say in how things are done and, thus, take pride in the finished product. Everyone is considered an associate, and job titles are few.

``Where practical, we use consensus to make decisions,'' he said. However, he added, ``Sometimes, like with safety issues, it isn't practical, and we can't use a team approach.''

Kelly said the concept has been used in Spokane from the earliest planning stages, by a team that included workers. To get their input, they were brought into the light, airy factory before machinery was installed to help decide where it would go.

Kelly is a 33-year Boeing veteran who moved from Auburn to head the Spokane team. As part of the relaxed culture, he often wears a turtleneck shirt and sweater to work, rather than the navy-blue blazer and gray flannel lacks that are more common at Boeing operations here. His corner office has no doors.

Employees say they like the open style.

Brian Minter, a tool and product planner who had 12 years of experience at Auburn, said the workers are open-minded about doing things in new ways and are building a sense of pride in turning out quality products. He said he also believes he has more of a chance here to succeed in his job and get ahead.

``It's exciting to be able to bring decision-making to the lowest possible level,'' Minter said.

He said that he also likes the slower-paced Spokane living environment, with less traffic and lower housing costs than Seattle.

In the plant, Minter said, ``We get a real sense of family. Everyone knows everybody.''

Everyone meets in a plantwide meeting each week to discuss how work is going and to solve problems. Minter said these meetings help build a lot of excitement about what employees can do and about what has been accomplished.

``People really do speak up,'' said Luis Mendoza, a former Key Tronic employee who has become a plastics bench mechanic for Boeing and was one of the first to be hired in Spokane after completing the training. Key Tronic is another major Spokane employer, manufacturing computer keyboards.

``We were trained to accept and implement ideas,'' Mendoza said. ``It's completely different than I expected. People here are so open. It's welcome, and our opportunities are enormous.''

Kelly said job applicants are screened by the state Department of Employment Security and then must complete a 200-hour pre-employment course to ensure they are adaptable to the team concept.

More than 600 Auburn workers applied to transfer to Spokane, but only 94 have been chosen, in keeping with the pledge to hire most of the workers locally.

Richard Cherry, a DeLand, Fla., industrial social psychologist consulting with Boeing on organizing management at Spokane, praised Boeing officials for how they have handled the start-up.

``They've done a remarkably good job, and it seems to be working,'' he said. ``What we don't know yet is if it's just a honeymoon or if it will succeed in the long term. Expectations are high (for productivity and employee satisfaction).''

The plant has its own medical center and a large ``cafetorium'' where everyone eats together rather than at their respective work stations, as some prefer to do at the Auburn plant.

``The idea is to help foster friendships,'' said Bob Rowlands, plant manager. ``Everyone is on a first-name basis.''

The eating area is separated from the factory by what workers call ``the mall.'' Like a hallway in a high school, the space is lighted by skylights and employee lockers line the walls.

As in other Boeing work areas, aprons, glasses and other safety equipment are available for employees. Showers are more accessible than in other plants because of the new design. Extra ventilation and special containment equipment are used to clear toxic fumes and dust from the work areas, to avoid problems like those that occurred at the World War II-era Auburn plant nearly two years ago.

Cherry said the operation is a vision of what the future workplace can be like. A hazard, Cherry said, is that management can feel threatened by the new power at the bottom.

``Sometimes, companies try to move too quickly and it backfires,'' he said.

Cherry said transforming the culture is much easier at new operations than at older plants. He also has advised Boeing on organizing its Corinth, Texas, plant for Boeing Electronics and is consulting on its new sheet-metal fabrication plant at Auburn, using many of the same concepts.

``What impresses me most is that Boeing is doing this when it is looking good. So many companies wait until they are near Chapter 13 (federal bankruptcy) before they decide that employees might have some worthwhile suggestions.''

Boeing Chairman Frank Shrontz has been emphasizing quality and productivity improvement as company goals for several years. The Spokane experiment reflects that attempt to change in order to be more competitive.

At the Oct. 26 dedication of the plant, Bruce Gissing, executive vice president of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group said, ``With the team spirit already evidenced by the employees of this plant, we know we have done the right thing by moving our operations to Spokane.''