Boeing South Carolina opens new paint facility

NORTH CHARLESTON (WCSC) -

Boeing South Carolina became the first Boeing site in the world to support start-to-finish production of commercial jetliners Thursday. The new paint facility is on the south side of the North Charleston campus, near International Boulevard.

Before this paint facility opened, planes built in Charleston would have to fly to another Boeing site around the country for their paint job. Boeing South Carolina is now the only site able to do end-to-end production.

“We don’t have to send them out anymore! Woohoo,” Boeing SC vice president and general manager Joan Robinson-Berry exclaimed. She said this new paint hanger makes their job at Boeing SC much easier. “Now, it’s going to allow us to do everything from freezer and assembling the raw materials, all the way to paint to flying away. We added another more than 360,000-square-feet to our facilities.”

Mike Holtslander has been on Boeing’s paint team since 2012. He will be joining the paint team at Boeing SC and is excited about the expansion.

“We can’t wait to paint our first 787 right here in South Carolina,” Holtslander said. “Thank you SSG, Skanska and our BSC leadership for this wonderful facility for us to work in every day.”

The new paint facility is nine stories tall and the length of two football fields. It brings Boeing's total to more than 4 million-square feet in South Carolina.

“There is enough reinforced steel in this project that if you lined it up end-to-end, you’d 7million linear feet or more than 13,000 miles,” Skanska vice president of SC Matt Frey said. Skanska is the company that built the paint facility.

Robinson-Berry is unsure how many new jobs this will create, but she said this new paint facility proves Boeing’s commitment to South Carolina.

“If they have confidence in you, they’re going to give you more opportunities," Robinson-Berry said. "I think us building the 787-10 exclusively here in South Carolina, it’s a vote of confidence that this facility here is in mind for the future.”

Source:  http://www.live5news.com