Boeing names Yahyavi to advise suppliers, help Alenia

Boeing Co. named former 747 program chief Mo Yahyavi as vice president of supply-chain management to advise vendors including Alenia Aeronautica, which has struggled with its role in building the 787 Dreamliner.

Yahyavi will report to Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Jim Albaugh in the newly created position of vice president and senior adviser, according to a notice sent to employees that was confirmed by Jim Proulx, a spokesman for the Chicago-based company. Yahyavi joins Ray Conner, who is general manager of supply chain management and operations.

Yahyavi will assess and enhance Boeing suppliers' rate readiness, manufacturing and quality discipline, and management systems, according to the notice. His initial focus will be on Alenia, a unit of Rome-based Finmeccanica SpA, which Boeing has blamed for some setbacks to development and delivery of its new Dreamliner jet.

Boeing in August reinspected its fleet of Dreamliners after discovering flaws in horizontal stabilizers made by Alenia. Boeing said it needed to verify that Alenia's production processes and workmanship were up to Boeing standards. Boeing last year temporarily stopped production of the 787 after finding wrinkles in Alenia's composite-fuselage sections.

The Dreamliner, the first composite-plastic airliner, is almost three years behind schedule, partly because of the new supplier-driven production system Boeing created to build the jet. The planemaker relies on partners around the world to build complete sections of the aircraft that are then flown to Boeing's factory in Everett, Washington, and snapped together.

Yahyavi had run the 747-8 jumbo-jet team since February 2009 before being replaced in August, a month before Boeing announced another setback to the program that stretches its delays to almost two years. Before that, he was in charge of the 737 P-8A Poseidon, the U.S. Navy's conversion of the 737 into a submarine hunter.

Suppliers are also in focus as Boeing prepares to increase production starting next year, including a 21 percent boost to output of 737s over the next three years.