Four years ago, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun stepped in to address a crisis at Boeing. Now, he is stepping aside with the manufacturer still mired in a crisis over the quality of its planes. Read more about the executive shakeup here: on.wsj.com/49lGKng
@@MikeCTRVLRthe inspectors should be in the FAA. Lobbying and campaign donations should be made illegal. Revolving door should be made illegal. Better yet, Boeing should be nationalized and placed under democratic control with full transparency and public audits. No more drive to maximize profit YOY, planes would be cheaper and safer. Also, it would reduce costs on the tax payer as we currently subsidize Boeing, allow them to over-inflate government contracts, etc. All revenue made, if nationalized, would go back to the tax payer and workers, not private investors who have no interest outside of maximizing profit for themselves
This is what they are switching to in software development: devs QA their own work, deploy to production, handle production issues. All to save on QA and Prod monitoring staff.
@@xx133FAA isn’t better. What’s needed is people like this whistleblower being taken seriously and having no agenda. An employee intimate with manufacturing but someone who can’t be fired by Boeing.
Like the whistleblower that was on camera for this segment? Or are you referring to Mr. Barnett, whose testimony concluded FIVE YEARS AGO? And who hadn’t worked at the plant in 7? And whose testimony led to additional FAA regulations which were all implemented in 2019?? The “testimony” he was currently in the midst of was (if you could be bothered to read past clickbait headlines) part of his appeal for a rejected defamation lawsuit against Boeing and poised exactly ZERO threat to Boeing in literally any way. Boeing Execs would have to be even dumber than this conspiracy theory to have sought to off Mr. Barnett.
Small companies get taken down for a wrong serial number but Boeing can hire their own FAA representative. While probably handing bonuses to the ones churning the planes out.
People blame many of Boeing’s current woes on the “McDonnell-Douglas culture,” but how many have stopped to ask how that toxic, short-sighted culture and management philosophy came to be in the first place? A nontrivial piece of the answer is that McDonnell Douglas had lots of Jack Welch-era GE alumni throughout its managerial ranks. Welch’s tenure at GE was marked by counterproductive cost-cutting, and a laser focus on upcoming quarterly earnings above all else. He is also known as the pioneer of “rank and yank” (I.e. fire the bottom ten percent of employees). I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of these people made their way to MD. In 1996, GE was the most valuable company in the world. The MD merger took place in 1997, so that culture was very much en vogue at the time. Not a stretch to guess that this played a role in how MD management came to “take over” at Boeing. Also consider: Current CEO Dave Calhoun and the first new post-merger CEO, Harry Stonecipher, were also Welch-era GE alums and disciples. Is there more to it than that? Yes; however, Boeing’s current state of affairs begins to make a lot more sense with that extra layer of context.
I worked as a writer and none of my work went without multiple proof readings by others before being submitted for publishing. How much more important our safety issues are!
The vast majority of Boeing Employees have the right attitude and care about flight safety. However, as in any business, some employees and managers need careful surveillance. Some are just careless. Others don’t bat an eye if they try to sell a job to an inspector with a missing part or a defect , they expect the inspector to find that the part is missing or that a defect exists. Decades ago the Man Power Development and training Act (MDTA) put many new (well-trained) inspectors on the shop floor. New hires were trained by senior Boeing Inpectors over several months. A new program is needed to train inspectors. The MDTA was one of the few government programs that worked flawlessly.
Dealing with Quality Control with ISO audits, SOPs etc. One thing is clear. Boeing has sacrificed quality over profit. FAA needs to place its own QAs in every plant and oversee if the SOPs are followed to the letter!
@captiannemo1587 There are many qualified auditors that can do the job the money Boeing will pay for it since it is incompetent to do what they are supposed to do on their own.
its the wrong aproach - if the FAA put its own QA in every plant you give boeing essential a free quality control payed by tax payers - the goal should be to punish boeing incl individuals who doesnt do is job of quality control and im not talking about the workers who put the planes together The idea about the FAA more practical aproach isnt bad but it need to stop where the FAA becomes boeing´s quality control payed by tax payers
As a 737 Captain for a major airline I will say the biggest mistake with the 737 is Boeing has tried to make it the same type rating as the version that rolled off the assembly line in 1968 while also sort of upgrading the technology. That was a huge mistake but I understand why they did it. The airplane needs a stronger APU and an EICAS just for starters.
Both are missing. QA is catching defects before they ship to customers. QC is setting up the manufacturing process in such a way as to make defects impossible.
C Suite bonus should be partly based on results of an internal survey of engineers that ask them how they’d rate Boeing safety culture. Apparently engineers have been complaining about this for years. If executives’ paychecks were based on those concerns being addressed, maybe none of this would have happened.
Just imagine what kind of additional problems are going to show up from the aircraft with bad parts that slipped through the cracks which are miles wide. This isn’t over.
Most annoying to hear the leadership talk about how we should stop cutting corners and prioritize quality, after you’ve been frustrated for years with their very strange decisions to cut costs and throw quality out of the window in the first place. Happens in all kinds of organizations. Thankfully, many aren’t as life and death as Boeing.
Boeing needs an Engineer as CEO, not a private equity expert - like the current CEO is. Since the current CEO is stepping down together with some of the senior management, it is paramount that he is replaced with an engineer - who give priority to the quality of the aircraft, and not to increase profits for investors irrespective of all other things...
Previous CEO was a career engineer before going into management. And he was the one begging the FAA and Trump not to ground the MAXes even after the 2nd crash. The corruption from Wall Street and management culture can happen regardless of who is in charge.
Boeing's last lot of managers learned their trade at GE from Jack Welch. There is no such company as GE anymore as it has been managed MBA'd and acountanted to death.
I have worked for over 20 years at another very large aerospace company (begins with the letter “L”) and we are right behind Boeing in the sense that management is actively attempting to eliminate quality processes so we can become more “efficient”. Any concern expressed by the production floor people is politely ignored. We have incorporated similar practices with Boeing in which production mechanics buy off their own work. In the last 24 months we have made the worst production errors I have seen during my tenure with the company. Even when faced with the growing evidence that these new quality processes are failing, there is reluctance to admit the new processes are flawed. Rather, management is doubling down. There exists this attitude that older practices are automatically flawed and outdated. Got to keep breaking down those silos.
It's all in the paperwork and procedures. No number of additional inspectors would have known that the retention bolts were not installed in that door plug without taking it apart again. There should be a document, signed be either an inspector or a mechanic, stating that they were installed. The question is: where is that document?
☝️ one of only a few actually reasonable comments on this thread. Yes, unofficially, it appears someone intentionally circumvented a process to AVOID having to sign it up to QA again - a scandal that should have been preventable and there was a failure there. But it was NOT systemic - it was a limited number of bad actors (who yes, may have behaved the way they did due to pressure).
@@RingoBars it appears different - the posibilty that its possible to circumvent a part of the QA is the defention of systemic in my opinion in my opinion multiple layers of QA have faild and intentionaly putting in someone in harms way is Intentional Endangerment or something along this lines - courts and lawyers will have a field day and the possibility that boeing not prevented this action could be also punished criminaly
Yes - source inspection and customer inspections in addition. Boeing must do better, but this hysteria is just that: hysteria and media taking the opportunity for them extra clicks. Even going nuts over 30 year old Boeing planes when they experience a maintenance (Airline responsibility) problem. But the masses don’t know any better…
That's true! All components must meet stringent criteria to be approved. Even tiny components such as rivets and screws have to be periodically verified to be “The right stuff”.
@@RingoBarsAlthough media does exaggerate there are quite a few serious issues that happened in the last few years. Much more than what should ever happen.
Yep. They got him 5 years after his testimony had concluded and its impact had been implemented at the South Carolina plant. Makes perfect sense - if you only read clickbait headlines. Why did they not off the whistleblower on camera for this segment? Seems weird they would off some guy who had ZERO new info to provide, having not worked at Boeing for 7 years and 5 years after he already testified. Weird.
They offed a guy whose testimony CONCLUDED FIVE YEARS AGO?? But they didn’t off the whistleblower literally featured in this video? Wow. That’s wild. And makes absolutely no sense.
Why did it get this bad? Boeing use to set the standard. Management let this happen. Management sets the priority. Inspection has to be done during manufacturing. I equate it to maintenance. Management will say we don't need to spend money on maintenance because nothing has been failing. Then after a few years everything starts falling apart. Then management will then say the workers are not doing maintenance. This is a management problem and a leadership problem.
The easy way to separate quality assurance from retaliation by company execs is to have them employed by the FAA but paid for by the manufacturer. Make it a cost of doing business thing that no cost cutting exec can actually do anything about. This would also cut the funding needed from the FAA to maintain the QA program enormously. No exec or manager can pressure QA to push out uninspected planes since that person is not in the QA chain of command. Planes would perhaps be a hundred thousand dollars more expensive, but for a multi-million dollar aircraft, that is a comparatively miniscule cost increase.
IF IT IS A BOEING THAN OUR FAMILY IS NOT GOING. This mantra is the only way things will change. Until we all get together and send a message financially by refusing to support Boeing than these issues will continue to manifest.
When production and shipping is placed over quality aftermaths like this happen, a strong quality assurance focus on prevention and validation of PFMEA AND CP will aid this
If the company wants to be the gold standard of aviation manufacturing again it needs to have a dedicated quality control department or program. Look at Toyota they have a robust safety system and reliability maybe it’s not too bad to have the same concept.
Being appears to be in the logical fallout of production over quality…. Happens everywhere… leaking buildings etc etc problem is buildings don’t have to fly
1:11 it may be a small percentage but of what? If self inspection is allowed on a critical component or system, it will have an outsized negative effect on the product quality.
Boeing, and this report, make the mistake of conflating quality control and quality assurance, but they are very different things. The goal of quality assurance is to make sure defects do not get shipped to customers. That is what Boeing and the FAA are trying to do. The goal of quality control is to set up the manufacturing process in such a way that defects become impossible. For example, if it is important that a certain part be installed in a certain orientation, design the part so that it only fits when it is in the correct orientation. Create door plugs that cannot be installed without being properly secured. How? I don't know. That is the downside of quality control: it is very difficult to set up; it has to be built in to the design of the product. Once a proper QC process gets rolling though the cost savings and customer satisfaction just keep going up.
Personally I've worked at Boeing in the welding department C-17 The Welding Engineer had zero welding experience only textbook knowledge! I've worked at Aero Arc an offload site for the C-17 also in the welding department. I witnessed their titanium welding not being purged, Their welds are wire brushed and sandblasted! Any welding Engineer or welding inspector should see the obvious red flag!
the thing is, years ago when these issues started occurring, even though hundreds had died, it didn't hurt boeing that much. it took them (or someone within boeing) killing a whistleblower to actually cement their reputation for good. when pilots are being given paid leave and passengers changing flights all because of your companies reputation, you know you're screwed. you'd have better luck offering cruises on a ship called the titanic.
100% inspection is 80% effective. 200% inspection or 300% inspection will result in minimal increase in effectiveness. Process Control and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis with TGR/TGW feed back is hat is needed.
Just like in corporate auditing, the method changed from physically checking over the shoulders of workers, to using probablility theory to highlight likely causes of problems. This reduces the numbers of checkers. So now they just do spot checking only. They actually don't have a qualified engineer watch whats going on. And this week we are hearing that Ryan Air does its own checking and they have found things from wrenches to ladders being left behind in spaces in new $100m Boeing aircraft.
It’s a shame the United States has fallen so far behind other developed countries when it comes to high speed rail. I’d much rather take a train at this point then fly on a Boeing plane
No mention of the Delta Airbus A330 neo flying from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam having to make an emergency landing due to a panel falling off during takeoff.
cause its an Airbus ??? the articel is about boeing and not airbus i dont see any reports of systemic problems in airbus plants ? i dont see any reports that pust airbus in the same basket as boeing in terms of quality control ? i dont see any reports about airbus putting finacial success over quality the titles says BOEINGS quality control maybe thats why its not menitoned in an articel about boeing ????????????????
Boeing needs to become an aviation engineering company once again. Like Airbus. They need an Engineer as CEO. They need Engineers in Senior Management. And Senior Management must move back to Seattle. Senior Management and Operations must be in the same place. Like Airbus in Toulouse. If they don't do this Airbus will leave Boeing for dead. Europe's EASA have said they're ready to reject FAA certification as worthless. Boeing will then face much tougher inspection. And will fail.
Do you think it's very strange that it's the CFO that keeps saying Boeing will focus more on safety and quality? Did he feel guilty that he prioritized financial performance over safety and quality?
the FAA shouldnt cutt it - its not there job to act as boeings QA - there job should be to regulate the QA otherewis the tax payers would pay boeing own QA boeing spend millions for politican and im betting that politican have intervend on behalf of boeing - the FAA is a gouverment agency and politican play a big part of deciding there budget - the rest is self-explanatory
I think this is a corporate America problem . We see this in every industry is do it quicker, cheaper, yet some how keep quality . Any changes need to be made at the top
it apears that way - look how many CEO and others high ranking employees got punished in the fanancial crisis (leeman brothers)? zero nada none it tells you everything about how the law is diffrent for some people
How many people have been FIRED because of their problems, because I know a lot of people SHOULD be! And the CEO should have been FIRED, not allowed to “step down” and collect tens of millions! What a DISGRACE!
