In The Works 26 Years, Honda Jet Nears Production

By Chester Dawson

The Wall Street Journal

Honda Motor Co.’s long-deferred dream of growing wings is about to come true when it starts commercial production of its first commercial aircraft later this year—three years behind schedule and 26 years after launching the program.

The five-passenger plane, dubbed HondaJet, sells for $4.5 million each—or enough to buy about 285 basic Civic compact sedans.

Honda Aircraft Co. CEO Michimasa Fujino, who has overseen development since its outset in 1986, is confident Honda has found a sweet spot for business jets in the no-frills, short-haul end of the private jet market. He says Honda’s plane has a wing up on rival aircraft — mainly Brazil’s Embraer S.A. and Cessna Aircraft, a unit of Textron Inc. — due to spillover from its logistical and technological prowess making mass market vehicles.

Indeed, Honda seems to have taken the jet’s unofficial nickname “Civic of the skies” to heart, at least as it applies to production techniques. The company has extended its auto assembly line manufacturing moxie to private jets by utilizing just-in-time inventory control, faster tact times allowing it to turn out 80 jets a year—nearly double the industry average—and better fit-and-finish inside the cabin. Mr. Fujino says the competition has a lot to learn…from Honda’s glove compartments.

“Interiors are an area where car design specifications are much more advanced than for business shuttle-type jets. There’s an a la carte approach where it’s not usual to find things like seats that don’t quite match or fit together seamlessly, which takes time to go back and fix later,” Mr. Fujino said. “But as an automaker that makes millions of cars a year, our design and production specs are such that, for example, we never install a single glove compartment that doesn’t snap shut tight.”

Despite weak economic growth in the U.S. and Europe—the only two markets where the HondaJet will be sold initially–Mr. Fujiino is confident the plane will turn a profit within the first five years. He has an ally in Honda Motor CEO and president Takanobu Ito, a former head of R&D at the company who has helped usher the business jet program toward the runway.

But Mr. Fujino acknowledges he still frequently gets peppered with the ‘why’ question, six years after Honda formally announced its intention to enter the commercial jet market, a launch delayed by various development snafus.

“We often get asked: Why is Honda building airplanes? I mean, it’s inconceivable that another automaker like General Motors would start selling jets,” Mr. Fujino said, adding: “At Honda, we take a multi-faceted approach to business focused not just on short-term quarterly or annual [earnings] reports, but longer-term [objectives] a over five- or ten-year time horizon.”

So far, it’s CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited) for Honda Aircraft Co.

Source:  http://blogs.wsj.com