The Wall Street Journal(3/29, A3, Lunsford) reported that Boeing Co. "said Friday that it will buy out Vought Aircraft Industries Inc.'s interest in an assembly plant in North Charleston, S.C." The move is a "new bid to get the 787 Dreamliner back on track," but is also seen as "a step back from its effort to share development of the hot-selling 787 jetliner with suppliers," according to the Journal. Boeing's plan "to spread billions of dollars in development costs among a large number of suppliers, while also streamlining its own manufacturing" has "contributed to several delays" for the Dreamliner.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer(3/29) explained that "Boeing said it will acquire a 50 percent stake in [Vought's] Global Aeronautica LLC, which builds parts of the 787 fuselage and ships them to Boeing's Everett location for final assembly. Financial details were not disclosed." Peter Arment, an analyst with American Technology Research, believes the Vought plant was targeted because it had "been sort of a bottleneck on the production ramp-up and a poor performer in terms of managing to put those sections together at a fast pace."

Pat Shanahan, vice president and general manager of the 787 program, said the purchase "will enable the 787 team to continue to overcome supply-chain challenges of the program, " according to the Seattle Times(3/29).

Focusing on the supply-chain troubles, the Chicago Tribune(3/29, Miller) noted that Boeing "borrowed a page from the automobile industry and implemented a plan under which an international chain of contractors produce components and assemble wings and other major elements" of Dreamliner production. And while the "supply-chain difficulties can be traced to a number of bottlenecks, and the problems vary in scope," it was "Vought, a Dallas-based company that specializes in making aviation structural products, [that] has been among the most prominent." Bloomberg(3/29, Ray), the Financial Times(3/29, Baer), the Charleston Post and Courier(3/29, McDermott), the Dallas Morning News(3/29, Godinez), the AP (3/28), the Puget Sound Business Journal (3/28), Texas's Star-Telegram(3/29, Cox), Aviation Week(3/28, Mecham), Reuters(3/28, Peterson), and the UPI(3/29) also covered the story.