Boeing 737 Max 9: Here we go again

much of the responsibility for the current debacle rests squarely on the shoulders of the board, bringing in Calhoun and his team after back-to-back tragedies (circa 2018) is a best perplexing...and costly. The saving grace for BA is that the commercial airliner field is a duopoly.

Boeing had come under the spell of a seductive new theory of “knowledge” that essentially reduced the whole concept to a combination of intellectual property, trade secrets, and data, discarding “thought” and “understanding” and “complex reasoning” possessed by a skilled and experienced workforce as essentially not worth the increased health care costs. CEO Jim McNerney, who joined Boeing in 2005, had last helmed 3M, where management as he saw it had “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership” before he purged the veterans into early retirement.

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I witness this attitude metastasize at a manufacturer in a different industry. This company had been, in in some way still is, a major player in something of a niche market with few direct competitors and significant geographic market advantages. The position was achieved with a little bit of luck, but mostly through engineering, market, and regulatory expertise. A change in ownership fractured this expertise, and new management came in that neither had, nor valued, the expertise that had built and sustained the business. Personally frustrating to me: the new (and current) management never self-developed and interest in the engineering of the products... success was sales, no matter what was sold.

A few years ago, the company went 100% into the "we have intellectual property" phase, thinking that the brand name and sales rolodex is where the value is. They've been moving manufacturing overseas to low cost areas, closing long-running factories. They have outsourced development/testing of new products. They've outsourced the regulatory duties. Hundreds of employees have been laid off. Eventually they are going to hit the Sears/K-Mart phase where they start selling properties.

All of this exhibits why I feel so tired after 30 years in the QA field. I have so many times received the directive to "Ship it, let's see if they complain" and relentless pressure to pass PPAP projects before they were ready. It is so discouraging to see the spectacular nature of Boeing's fall due to shortsighted outsourcing initiatives, enabled by a wholesale program to push through poorly conforming products to the customer level.

My dad was a Boeing manufacturing engineer (I use lower case because he did not have a degree which would have gained him credibility in job assignment) in Seattle in the early 1980s. If he had a grave I feel sure he'd be spinning in it. As it is I feel sure he would feel very sad to see what that great brand has been sunk to.

Jen Kirley said:

All of this exhibits why I feel so tired after 30 years in the QA field. I have so many times received the directive to "Ship it, let's see if they complain" and relentless pressure to pass PPAP projects before they were ready. It is so discouraging to see the spectacular nature of Boeing's fall due to shortsighted outsourcing initiatives, enabled by a wholesale program to push through poorly conforming products to the customer level.

My dad was a Boeing manufacturing engineer (I use lower case because he did not have a degree which would have gained him credibility in job assignment) in Seattle in the early 1980s. If he had a grave I feel sure he'd be spinning in it. As it is I feel sure he would feel very sad to see what that great brand has been sunk to.

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Great points Jen, and spot on...pretty much independent of product or field, the push to ship "crap" if I may, and hope no one notices..this facilitates the plant manager and others meeting their respective volume based goals, and $$$ bonus...let the Field Engineering folks or the dealer/distributor deal with the dubious quality...scary stuff indeed.. From a moral perspective...some wisdom shared with me as a new grad in the DOD world...assume the product you are involved with or part of the project team etc., will be used by your Mom Dad, Wife Aunt or Uncle, To pass on terrible, dangerous, shoddy products to them would be unthinkable

optomist1, it's heartbreaking.

Hi Jen, same here...as BA is a or at least has been (now that is being tested) a bastion of US Eng/Mfg. prowess. And part of this debacle is due to the FAA's cozy, unjustified trusting relationship with BA. Yet, the bulk rests with the finance folks...no vision and single minded, short sighted perspective...hmm 737 was launched 1968?? you can only milk that cash cow for so long,,,then its time to design a new cash cow!

optomist1

optomist1 said:

hmm 737 was launched 1968?? you can only milk that cash cow for so long,,,then its time to design a new cash cow!

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Boeing was forced to announce the 737 Max following the A320 Neo and, at that time, BA was still “recovering” financially and restoring it’s reputation from the 787 development debacle and fiasco. As they could not afford a totally new aircraft development cycle, not only due to financial constraints, but also due to the long time to engineer and certify a new model, they went for a “cheap” solution with the Max family “evolution” and the MCAS catastrophe of not having to train the flying crew as a selling point, it was all baked in for a major blunder.

Context is critical to understand how a string of bad decisions can be allowed to develop by an organization, once considered a leader in many fronts.

Sidney’s synopsis is pretty close to the mark. Most things are more complex and involved than we would like - we need to take the time and do the work to understand them, else we will complete the plunge in to the second dark age.

True knowledge cannot be gotten from a meme no matter how clever the cartoon is. We only need to read any number of postings here to understand that too few people have any real grasp - let alone enough knowledge to be proficient - of the quality sciences. Misinformation is rampant yet believed because too many people can’t or won’t take the time to research a subject. This affects even well intentioned people, not just the so-called ‘conspiracy nuts’.

As I’ve posted before please read “Flying Blind - the story of the 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing” to understand what actually happened.

Agree with much of the above, yet Boeing’s repeated decision not to develop a 737 replacement is key to this series of tragic missteps, they could not afford to design a clean sheet airframe, yet the resulting costs incurred to date are daunting!

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