A German company that is supplying parts for the Boeing Co.’s new 787 airliner has decided to locate its assembly building in Snohomish County.
Drager Aerospace has narrowed its list of prospective sites and hopes to have a lease signed soon, said Wolfgang Marquardt, the company’s customer support representative for Boeing programs.
“We are really excited,” he said.
The facility will be small, initially employing about 10 people working in a building of about 20,000 square feet to assemble passenger service units – the lighting and ventilation systems above each seat.
But it’s a milestone. Drager is the first new Boeing supplier to announce it is moving to Everett to build parts for the 787. Last year, 787 supplier Messier-Buggatti moved from its previous Everett site into a new 25,000-square-foot plant on 75th Street SW.
“This is a new company here,” said Deborah Knutson, president of the Snohomish County Economic Development Council. “They’ve got the contract on the 787, and it’s very exciting.”
Drager has been supplying passenger service units for Boeing planes, including the 737 and 767, for 11 years. Previously, it manufactured the systems in Europe and shipped the finished product to Boeing.
With the new program, Drager decided to find an Everett site close to the Boeing factory “so we can have a short-time delivery,” Marquardt said. The new assembly building also will be close to the engineers the company has hired to work on the 787 contract, PCSI Designs of Everett.
John Monroe, who heads the development council’s aerospace outreach program, said the group has been working with Drager for about six months identifying potential sites, reviewing state aerospace tax incentives and putting the company in contact with other Boeing suppliers it can do business with.
Now that it’s made the decision, Drager is hoping to move fairly quickly. Marquardt said the company is scheduled to start providing passenger service units to Boeing in April 2007, and will need to be up and running prior to that so it can get the parts certified.
The German company isn’t planning to import workers, he said.
“We want to hire Americans,” Marquardt said. “Right now, we’re planning to hire local people.”
When Boeing announced it was building the 787 in Everett, state and local officials predicted that suppliers would flock to the area, building new factories and providing jobs.
“We all thought it made the most sense for them to be across the street from Boeing,” Knutson said.
However, while Messier-Buggatti and some others have expanded, the rapid influx hasn’t happened, she acknowledged. “It takes a little longer than we all think.”
The issue for most 787 suppliers is that “making a new part in a new airplane in a new location with new people … it gets kind of scary,” she said.
As a result, most are opting to do their early production work at their home factories, at least for the near term, Knutson said.
Still, the development council remains in talks with about six 787 suppliers about moving to Everett. Knutson said she’s encouraged. “We haven’t had any ‘nos’.”
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