Market analysts projected a six-month delay Monday in the first delivery of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and cut estimates of how quickly the company would increase production of the plane. The latest forecasts came in response to Boeing's announcement last week that it expected to come up with a new delivery schedule over the next few weeks for the much-delayed plane. Boeing said it was working on design changes for power distribution panels after a recent fire forced a test plane to land in Texas. The fire, which lasted less than 30 seconds, was probably caused by debris left in a panel, the company said. The company, based in Chicago, said it would update the software that managed power distribution so the planes would not have to switch to backup power if a similar incident occurred. Boeing has been counting heavily on the Dreamliner, the first jetliner made primarily with lightweight carbon composites to slash fuel costs. It has attracted more advance orders -- nearly 850 -- than any plane in history. And as air travel rebounds from the recession, it should enable Boeing to overtake Airbus as the top jet maker. But Boeing has had to rebuild crucial parts from foreign suppliers. And analysts said that the problems, along with the changes prompted by the fire, were likely to add to the delays in the plane's first delivery, which had been scheduled for February. 'The status of the 787 is still in limbo, but a six-month delay seems like a reasonable first stab at how far the schedule might slide,' Joseph B. Nadol III, an analyst at J.P. Morgan, wrote in a note to clients. Robert Stallard, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, also expected a six-month delay. Nadol reduced his estimate of the number of Dreamliners that Boeing would deliver in 2011 to 20, from 45. Stallard cut his to 10 planes, from 22. Stallard said the delays could have a cascading effect over the next several years, making it difficult for Boeing to reach its planned production rate of 10 Dreamliners a month by the end of 2013. Boeing executives have acknowledged that they outsourced too much of the design work, and production of the first 20 to 30 planes has been slowed by the need to rework many parts. David E. Strauss, an analyst at UBS, wrote Monday that November was the seventh consecutive month in which deliveries of structural components to Boeing's 787 plant were below previous levels. The delays prompted Nadol and Stallard to make modest cuts in their estimates of Boeing's earnings in 2011. Given all the problems, Boeing has projected that the Dreamliner would produce profit margins in the low single digits for perhaps the first 1,000 planes it sells, Nadol wrote. He said the jet was still likely to be profitable over that period, though the added costs were eating into that buffer. Other analysts said that if the Dreamliner lived up to its promise, Boeing could eventually sell several thousand planes. 