Boeing says \'immature\' technology behind 787 delay

"Some of the technology was not as mature as it should have been and we put a global supply chain together without thinking through some of the consequences," Jim Albaugh, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said at a forum in the Saudi capital.

"When you put immature technology in your supply chain and don\'t supply adequate oversight, you have issues and that is what we had," he added at the annual Global Competitiveness Forum.

But he expressed confidence in the aircraft even if production is nearly three years behind schedule.

"It is going to be a magnificent airplane and will be 20 percent more efficient than the airplanes it is replacing," he said.

Boeing said last week it would delay the delivery of its first 787 unit from February to the third quarter of 2011.

The postponement came after a string of technical mishaps and delays slowed the testing programme for the jets, heralded as a new generation of highly fuel-efficient, mid-sized aircraft.

The company has encountered numerous difficulties in bringing the plane to market due to a new engineering strategy that uses composite materials and integrates production from several international sites.

An electrical fire during a test flight in November forced an emergency landing and ground Dreamliner tests to a halt.

But these resumed in December after the company said it had updated the power systems software and conducted rigorous reviews to confirm flight readiness.

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