Will Dreamliner costs become a nightmare for Boeing?

Boeing expects 2014 to be another great year, but to succeed in the long run, Boeing will have to slash the cost of building the Dreamliner, WSJ.com reports.

The Chicago-based company’s strong performance came despite a grounding of the Dreamliner and a smattering of reliability issues. For the year, it beat its delivery goal.

It is still costing Boeing more to make a Dreamliner than what it charges for them. If Boeing booked the difference between current sales and costs for each product it delivers, its commercial-jet division’s operating profit for the first nine months of 2013 would instead have been a $69 million loss, according to company figures. Boeing classifies the gap as “deferred production costs.”

Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith said in October that Boeing no longer considered deferred production costs a useful indicator of the Dreamliner program’s progress. But analysts say it remains the clearest measure of the 787’s cash consumption.

Here’s a timeline about the Dreamliner’s problems.