Inside Boeing’s struggle to make its best-selling plane again

Since a crippling strike at many of Boeing's U.S. plane factories ended more than a month ago, progress ramping up production of its best-selling 737 MAX jet has been deliberately slow. Safety inspectors inside the 737 MAX factory outside Seattle laboriously scoured half-constructed planes for flaws they may have missed during the seven-week work stoppage. Other workers poured over manuals to restore their expired safety licenses. The factory was initially so lifeless in mid-November that one employee left early because the bins of fasteners he was tasked with replenishing weren't being used, according to a source inside the plant. The result: no new 737 MAX plane has been completed. Boeing said on Tuesday that it had restarted MAX production last week, as first reported by Reuters. Boeing's cautious approach, following criticism that the planemaker for years rushed production, has garnered praise from regulators and some airline CEOs. But it also has some smaller suppliers who cut jobs or operating hours during the strike hesitating to staff-up again, creating further uncertainty in an already fragile supply chain, according to three suppliers, one analyst and an industry source. Both Boeing and rival Airbus have struggled to meet production goals due to supply chain delays. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg in October told analysts he was anticipating a bumpy return from the supply chain post strike. Parts that used to take a day to be finished at a processing shop now take a week, one supplier told Reuters.<br/>