OREANDA-NEWS.  Boeing (NYSE: BA) today announced it is centralizing customer support for in-service airplanes at its Boeing Commercial Airplanes Engineering Design Center in Southern California, as the company continues to focus on increasing competitiveness while enabling continued growth of the global airline industry.

"We're creating a single location for customer support at the Southern California design center to ensure that we are well-positioned to support Boeing airplanes in service around the world as the market continues to grow," said Lynne Thompson, vice president of Customer Support, Commercial Aviation Services, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "We will be expanding our presence in Southern California to create a site dedicated to a superior customer experience. This move will allow us to tap into existing engineering talent in California to expand on our outstanding customer support and align resources in a single location.

"At the same time, we will focus our team in the Puget Sound area on helping customers introduce new airplanes – the 787 Dreamliner, the 737 MAX and the 777X – into their fleets," Thompson added. "We are committed to making this transition seamless to our customers."

In May 2013, Boeing established engineering design centers in South Carolina, Southern California and Washington state to add engineering capability and capacity as the company scales up to meet unprecedented demand for commercial airplanes and services. At that time, Boeing announced that support for out-of-production airplanes would be based at the Southern California center. Boeing continues to assess current and future work statement for each design center based on capability, capacity, competitiveness and optimization of the Boeing enterprise.

Customer support for the 707, 717, 727, 757, DC-8, DC-9, DC-10, MD-11 and MD-80/-90 models currently is based in Southern California. Customer support for the Next-Generation 737, 747, 767 and 777 models, as well as commercial product support for the KC-46 Tanker and P-8, will transition from Washington to California by the end of 2015.

"Our opportunity for future growth is unprecedented, and the engineering design centers help us be more competitive by building on our team's talent and capability – across Boeing, the United States and globally," said Mike Delaney, vice president of Engineering, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "We are structuring Boeing's engineering operations to support future growth, reduce business risks and consistently provide the products and services our customers expect."
The Southern California Engineering Design Center currently employs about 1,800 people at the company's Long Beach and Seal Beach sites. With this work placement, employment is expected to increase by approximately 1,000 positions during the next two years.
Of the affected employees in Washington, many will be offered positions with other programs in the Puget Sound area. In addition, employees will have opportunities to apply for new positions in California.