Boeing in the News

 

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(3.5-minute read)

            Just so you know up front, tawdry rich guy sex is going to be mentioned in this post.  It’s about all that I can think of to do considering the boring subject matter. 

Now what?

            Boeing has been in the news a couple of times lately.  In the most recent news one of their 757s had to divert and make an emergency landing because of a damaged wing.[1]  Back in January a door plug on a 737 blew out in flight.[2]  Exciting times for passengers.  The FAA is still investigating the wing failure.  The door plug was another matter entirely.  Critical bolts were missing and it’s being reported that they were never installed.[3]

            I couldn’t help but wonder since I worked for them at one time what has been going on behind the scenes.  Now we have an idea since the head of the 737 Max program is no longer with the company.  I’m going to hazard a guess that there may be some more heads rolling down the aisle as well.[4]  The company will do some things.  Things will get reported.  People will keep right on flying because for the most part air travel is real safe.  That’s probably gonna’ be a hard sell for people that were on the plane when the door plug exited prematurely midflight.

            My wife spent a few years as a passenger on Boeing planes.  I spent some time in the air on their planes as a passenger as well before I retired from the company.  My flying was for the most part not work related.  I flew using my wife’s frequent flyer miles to visit her in exotic places like NYC.  She was an executive at another company.  She’s retired too.

I loved sleeping with management.

Nothing new.

            Boeing’s problems aren’t new and have been ongoing for quite some time.[5]  From my perspective Boeing’s problems started when the company bought McDonnell Douglas and then McDonnell Douglas executives started running the Boeing company.  The joke in the factory at the time was that McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeing’s money.[6] [7]  Yes, the executives that ran their company out of business took control of Boeing. 

Former McDonnell Douglas CEO Harry Stonecipher ended up CEO of Boeing.  He ended up resigning because he was banging the help.  Before Stonecipher Boeing CEO Philip Condit had also resigned because of a scandal involving Pentagon contracts.[8] [9]  

There were lots of signs about what was to come.  At Boeing we had always enjoyed the reputation of building the best airplanes that we could.  The new Boeing referred to this as non-value-added costs. Uh-oh.  Management said that we needed to build parts that were just good enough to pass.  Big difference.  They reached for the skies with just good enough to pass as their new goal. 

            During this time Boeing set about gutting actual quality control by replacing it with Total Quality Control.  The company started moving from inspecting everything to Statistical Quality/Process Control.[10]  Just a few parts out of a group of parts are sampled.  That meant that lots of inspectors lost their jobs.  It also means that not every part is checked.  That also means that it is guaranteed that bad parts will make it through.  Thankfully aircraft are overbuilt with a lot of redundancy and engineering.  I would still fly in Boeing planes.

            The company also reduced benefits as well as eliminated an entire level of management.  Shop supervision went away and was replaced by hourly workers.  There was lots of cost cutting.  Critical technology/engineering was offloaded to outside companies and vendors.  Parts of the company were sold off.  I could go on and on but this is probably enough.  Suffice it to say the Boeing company has lost billions yet still made money for stockholders and executive buyouts.[11]  (Just do a search using “Boeing scandals and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.)  Failure was rewarded.

Profit before people.

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[1] https://news.yahoo.com/wing-destroyed-boston-flight-diverted-114758037.html

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/boeing-removes-head-of-737-max-program-in-wake-of-safety-incidents/index.html

[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-safety-regulator-release-initial-report-boeing-737-max-cabin-blowout-agency-2024-02-06/

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/21/business/boeing-removes-head-of-737-max-program-in-wake-of-safety-incidents/index.html

[5] https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/manufacturing-supply-chain/opinion-can-boeings-misguided-leaders-be-stopped

[6] https://finshots.in/archive/did-a-1997-merger-ruin-boeing/

[7] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/

[8] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-dec-02-fi-boeing2-story.html

[9] https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-boeing-was-set-on-the-path-to-disaster-by-the-cult-of-jack-welch

[10] https://www.britannica.com/topic/statistical-quality-control

[11] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-63003632