@Tornadoken
It's true that aircraft are not built in numbers like cars or vacuum cleaners, but, to produce aircraft in the numbers per week that Airbus and Boeing do absolutely demands PRECISION and Standardisation at every stage of the build process, from suppliers to final assembly. Customers, too, with large fleets, don't want to have aircraft that are nominally the same, but in the details that count, are diefferent enough to cause problems in on-time operation. The A320, for example, is being turned out at 38 - 40 per month and recently the company announced it was "studying" an increase to 44 p/m, and Boeing must be at similar rates for the 737. Airbus recently announced that it has just reached the 10,000 mark in total orders - 4000+ for the A320. (far from the totals of DC-3s and B-17s, I know, but the modern jet transport is a different fish-kettle from its war-time predecessors.)
Airbus had many years of experience of major sections being built by different firms in remote sites and flown to final assembly - a system which Boeing decided to adopt for the 787, with less experienced builders of some major sections, which has led to problems and delays, not all of which are attributable to their other decision to go for an "all-carbon fibre" construction. They'll get over it, of course, but are some 3 years behind schedule, by which time they'll have got the Precision and Standardisation bit sorted.
PS Software has to be standardised too, as Airbus found out after, to save money, two major factories used different versions of CATIA on the A380. Cost 'em, that did ...
Last edited by Jig Peter; 19th Jan 2011 at 15:31.
Reason: PS for "Levelling playing field"