My Boeing scrapbook (I am updating this fairly often):
This Is Definitive. And damning of Boeing and of software engineers. 346 people are dead because of bad design. Read this. “a cultural laziness within the software engineering community… it’s so easy to fix what you didn’t get right later.” spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boein…
The flaw in the design of the control system is clear [April 29, 2019] . People are tiptoeing around it only because Boeing will be sued for billions with so many dead.
“US FAA said the agency inspected several planes that Boeing had certified as free of such debris and found the same metal slivers.” In my mind I used to equate Boeing with bulletproof and worry about fancy plastic Airbus. www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/112186575/i-never-p…
A good insider history here crankyflier.com/2019/07/18/if-boeing-had-taken-a-d…
For a profound philosophical POV, read this to understand the games Boeing played with the moniker “737” to evade scrutiny.
www.edge.org/conversation/timothy_taylor-polytheti…
Nothing to see here “Traditionally, IAG has flown Airbus on short-haul routes and favored Boeing for long-haul, but CEO decided … supplying the 737 MAX to British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus, and Level… worth over $24 billion.” fortune.com/2019/06/21/boeing-737-max-sales-redemp…
*NOW* the FAA are finding another risk in the Boeing 737 Max?
The thing I loved about Boeing was they were bullet proof, not like those plastic-and-electronic Airbuses. #FaithLost. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-27/boei…
Nailed it: Boeing‘s Corner Cutting Cost a Fortune and 346 Lives www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/more-737-max-…
prioritising shareholder value is a discredited concept. Think Enron, or Boeing. www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/07/17/makin…
“It smacked of the sort of screwup a 23-year-old intern might have made—and indeed, much of the software on the MAX had been engineered by recent grads of Indian software-coding academies making as little as $9 an hour, part of Boeing management’s endless war on the unions”
“Most pilots first heard about MCAS from their unions, which had in turn gotten wind of the software from a supplementary bulletin Boeing sent airlines to accompany the airworthiness directive. Outraged, they took to message boards”
This tale should make everyone very angry. Not with the $9 programmers. Not even with Boeing. Be angry with the filthy greed-is-good Friedmanism that brought down Boeing and brought up Trump. I’m not anticapitalist. I’m anti unethical capitalism.
I have high hopes that the Boeing debacle will be a signal event to execs and boards that ethics matter. Volkswagen didn’t hurt enough but Boeing is really going to suffer.
346 people are dead and the Boeing CEO hasn’t resigned. fortune.com/2019/10/04/boeing-737-max-culture-muil…
O dear, Boeing had a bad week. I know [346] people who had a worse one recently. www.cnbc.com/2019/11/03/boeing-737-max-crashes-dra…
Boeing have completely rewritten the automation software whilst under immense pressure to get the plane flying again. What could possibly go wrong? (It also implies the prior deadly system was hacked from an “antiquated system”) www.businessinsider.com.au/boeing-737-max-flight-c…
the moment Boeing’s leadership decided to divorce itself from the firm’s own culture. Stupid elitist arrogance. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boei…
Seriously, Boeing has a culture problem liveandletsfly.com/787-lightning-protection/
I’ll grant that Boeing is gonna have to change a lot fast, but they have brought that on themselves and they will pay the cost of too-fast change.
Boeing is a case study in the toxicity of Friedmanism. It poisoned what was an excellent engineering culture.
“Boeing’s response has been an ugly mixture of remorse, evasion and swagger” I hope Boeing will be the bellwether of the fall of shareholder capitalism and a rise of social capitalism www.economist.com/leaders/2019/12/18/boeings-mispl…
Boeing have a problem. www.airlive.net/breaking-the-faa-confirmed-reviewi…
The 737 Max is I think unique in the laxness of the FAA oversight, the rush by Boeing, the level of outsourcing of design, and the fall of their own quality culture in the factories.
Boeing paid a $5M fine to the FCC. Watch them get $5B back. [I was out by an order of magnitude. After Covid they got $58B]
I used to say about Boeing “they may not be elegant but they’re bulletproof”. Hah!!
$5M fine for Boeing. That’s a slap on the finger. FAA complicity continues. www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/faa-fines-boeing-5point4-m…
I confess I WANT this to cause irreperable damage to Boeing. I don’t want what is going to happen: the govenrment bail them out and absolve them. I want the ruins of Boeing to stand as a monument to toxic corporate Friedmanism, like a collapsed bridge. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/lion-ai…
Will Boeing make real change or slap on a coat of paint? The world is too impatient for real change. It took a decade to bork the company and it will take a decade to fix it. So look for the quick fix: epoxy and sandpaper. Courtesy of a big consultancy.
This steams me up. Blame the staff. How about Boeing start by fixing the governance and values? Then change the management (the way they manage, and some of the senior staff). And move them back to Seattle. THEN they can talk about fiddling with structure. Starting with restructure signals to me change theatre. Restructure should be a lagging indicator of change, not the start. And I’m sure their pilots and engineers are the least of their problems. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-15/boeing-…
So assuming 5% profit margins, Boeing‘s fine is the profit from about 10 planes.
The EU fines Airbus $4 billion for bribery. Nobody dead. The FAA fines Boeing $50 million for unsafe planes. 340 people are dead. US morality on show. www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/31/airbus-to…
“Boeing patched a software code error just two hours before the vehicle reentered Earth’s atmosphere.” Fail fast. arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/starliner-faced-ca…
Has Boeing identified its culture as the issue? No.
Have there been Board changes? No.
The first thing they did was reorg their pilots.
Their focus now is fast-tracking the Max, and redesigning a future plane. Totally oblivious. www.smh.com.au/business/companies/first-time-since…
Boeing haven’t sunk to the bottom of the hole yet…. As an org, they deserve this. The individuals don’t. www.businessinsider.com.au/boeing-737-max-prosecut…
More evidence that Boeing is doing absolutely nothing about their culture problem. Blame the pilots. https://thewofa.com/2020/03/boeing-ceo-blames-pilots-for-737-max-crashes/
Four 787s all lost navigational control on approach to Hong Kong. Not another Boeing glitch? www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transport/article/3074…
More Boeing. Can we have the 747s back please. www.cnbc.com/2020/03/06/faa-proposes-fining-boeing…
And MORE Boeing. qz.com/1814088/nasa-launches-new-investigation-int…
If it was that marginal that the idea has been turned down, why the **** would Boeing even propose it? Profit over safety, that’s why. Boeing has a culture problem. www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max/boeing-pr…
Boeing: Safety Second. “the government proceeded to certify the plane first and address those issues later due to pressure from Boeing.” https://airlinerwatch.com/canadian-government-ignored-concerns-of-test-pilots-during-the-approval-of-737-max/
“Not only did safety improve,… also changed the relationship between managers and teams and enhanced the culture as a whole.” [No, of course it wasn’t Boeing] https://ft.com/content/01d79f38-6503-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68… There is a pattern of orgs whose boss makes safety the top priority which leads to .the whole org perfomance improving Alcoa is a famous one. And one of the American railroads. UP? Can anyone confirm?
Forget both internal and extenal competition. It was a fixation on business competition that ruined the Boeing culture. Fixate on truth beauty and goodness, and let the competitors worry about you.
$58billion for Boeing. It must be nice to know that no matter how much you fuck up a company as CEO, you’ll still personally get $60million parachute and the govt will save the company anyway. www.forbes.com/sites/jamesasquith/2020/03/20/confi…
Boeing couldn’t build a paper plane right now. They need some profound cultural change and they won’t be able to do it fast enough. Never mind flight shaming or Corona. Boeing are doing far more to keep people off airplanes.arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/after-troubled-fir…
More damning Boeing. They so lost the plot. www.theverge.com/2020/4/9/21197162/boeing-737-max-…
Guess who will have to pay to bail out Boeing after the collapse of their engineering culture. arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/a-nasa-analysis-of…
More quality issues in the notorious Charleston factory of Boeing. theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/boeing-pulls-eig… The only planes Boeing are pulling are those with TWO connected defects.
“hellbent on making rate”. Boeing have a serious and tragic culture problem. Will they fix it? No intent shown so far.
Now the horizontal stabilser on the Dreamliner. I think Boeing are now piling it on to numb the world.
This is almost beyond belief
edition.cnn.com/2020/09/08/business/boeing-787-fla…
Still sinking at the end of 2020
“broader quality-control checks, covering the entire fuselage of the planes rather than just certain sections around the tail”
Former Boeing CEO Raising $200 Million for SPAC Revealing true colours. Was Muilenburg’s passion to make the world’s best aircraft? Or to get rich?
The leader counts for everything. And reflects the culture of those hiring.
Friedmanism is toxic.
Psychological safety: here’s a good article from Jon Smart (from his book) itrevolution.com/lack-of-psychological-safety-at-b…
Shareholders’ suit citing internal Boeing documents alleges board didn’t act as fast on safety as CEO David Calhoun said www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-ceo-said-board-moved-q…
“quality and safety-oversight lapses going back years…
The Federal penalty is – as usual – pocket change: $6.6M, for “quality and safety-oversight lapses going back years”
But the hole Boeing is in just keeps getting deeper “structural integrity flaws embedded deep inside at least 88 parked 787s “.
That’s what you get folks for making shareholder value over engineering values.
The sharp suits ruined that company. t.co/iy2vvHkA4j
www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-787-insight/boei…
Is it just possible that Boeing are trying to restore engineering culture? Or will this be another bungie boss trying to save a sinking ship while the governors make holes?
www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737max-clark-idU…
April 2021: more 737MAX grounded.
This is now well into farce.
#Boeing engineering culture is so broken. Quality gone.
You watch: there will still be zero acknowledgement that this is a Friedmanist culture problem. Everything will still be about profit and shareprice.
www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/4/9/boeing-grounds-…
If that was farce, what is this a week later? More electrical problems found on some Boeing 737 Max, sources say
www.cnbc.com/2021/04/16/more-electrical-problems-f…
The Boeing Co. has quietly recalled at least some of as many as 900 quality control inspectors who were laid off in 2019 as part of a drive to adopt car-industry manufacturing processes in aerospace manufacturing.
Update (2): Boeing rehires aircraft inspectors
And yet still no admission the Boeing’s problems are systemic and cultural, nor any apparent appetite to address that.
www.cnbc.com/2021/07/13/boeing-787-dreamliner-manu…
‘Designed by clowns…supervised by monkeys:’ Internal Boeing messages
fortune.com/2020/01/10/designed-clowns-supervised-…
It just doesn’t stop. Boeing quality has gone to hell
www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-iss…
Heres a great article by Jon Smart about the broken culture: the lack of psychological safety.
Lack of Psychological Safety at Boeing
Nope, not gonna change. Screw humanity www.marketwatch.com/story/faa-to-review-boeing-emp…
I would say Boeing are not in a position to be debating quality-assurance methods with regulators right now
t.co/NeF9kUBdizhttps://www.news.com.au/breaking-ne…
Kill your engineering culture and outsource your manufacturing and this is what you get www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/9/3/…
This is getting monotonous.
www.todayonline.com/world/boeing-uncovers-another-…
I won’t be getting in one of these folding Boeings
“we know the normal rules were compromised in the MAX program, and this aircraft was built at the same time under the same regime. I can’t understand why the 777X with all its novelties was ticketed as a derivative, while it’s not when you build a new aircraft….
“It was a clear case of relaxation, the eye came off the ball as far as the FAA was concerned as to what in this case Boeing was doing, with the FAA inspectors becoming Boeing employees. We found that in a survey that was conducted recently 30% of the employees interviewed said that in their views safety was being compromised in the pursuit of profit. ”
And yet there is clearly zero appetite for Boeing to fix its culture. instead the handsome men in suits are putting the foot down to the metal and trying to drive straight through this process as if nothing were wrong.
More people are going to die for shareholder profit. www.airlineratings.com/news/emirates-boss-lashes-b…
Boeing Built an Unsafe Plane, and Blamed the Pilots When It Crashed
www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-16/are-boe…
I’m getting tired of tracking the shit storm that is Boeing.
The door “areas” now …
www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-dreamliner-defects-bog…
“deep corporate rot going back years, and continuing long after responsible leadership should have reversed course.”
It’s obvious to many, but apparently not to the Boeing shareholders or board. www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/hold-leade…
Former Boeing test pilot found not guilty of deceiving FAA
Thank goodness justice has been served. It is despicable (but entirely on form) that Boeing set this poor man up as the fall guy. What a thing to go through.
May 2022 and still lost. Moving HQ from Chicago to Washington DC.
“Boeing’s problem is not with government relations,” he said. “I don’t see doubling down the emphasis on D.C. lobbying as a breakthrough moment. It looks like a recipe for more of the same.”
www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boe…
It’s July 2022 and Boeing still trying to get this dog to fly.
www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-27/boeing-737-max-in-m…
Sept 22 and Boeing uses political muscle to force a way past safety controls.
What could possibly go wrong.
www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/wit…