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There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building great and

There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building great and safe products. This great culture was all lost as a result of the merger with McDonnell Douglas [1], [2], [3]. This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing engineers. This is an apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed 346 people and endangered the lives of 1000s more and destroyed jobs/wealth around the world. These apologists want you to think that the unholy trinity of the McDonnell Douglas culture which infected Boeing, the decisions of Harry C. Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas at the time of the merger and Dennis Muilenburg, the last CEO of Boeing who greenlighted the 737 MAX are responsible for this outcome. So strong is the apologists conviction in the purity of Boeing's engineering culture that they ignore the fact that thousands of engineers worked on the 737 Max. Not a single engineer raised issues with the engineering of the aircraft. Not a single engineer wrote a blistering memo calling out its failing or quit in protest. They were all held in thrall, paralyzed and forced to go against their ethics, professionalism, decency by the power of this unholy trinity! Eventually, all stellar organizations, public or private, become complacent (e.g. Israeli Intelligence Failure, 1973). Boeing made an unstable plane with a dangerous MCAS to get it to market fast. They then topped it off by making it rely on a single sensor. They then made the dual-sensor an upgrade. An undergraduate engineering student with a basic course on probability can see that this is tailor-made for disaster. Boeing made an essential safety feature an upgrade!! But wait there is more. They then proceeded to hide this monstrosity from every regulator and airline on the planet and insisted that the plane was no different in every aspect of its flight behavior than its predecessor which was over 30 years old and did not require additional safety training. Boeing had become so criminally blatant that the head of airline training at Lion Air inquired about extra training for the 737 Max and they rebuffed him. After the Lion Air crash, Boeing proceeded to cast aspersion on the safety practices of Lion Air. Lion Air does have a spotty safety record but in this case, Boeing rebuffed their requests for additional training because it would set a precedent for other airlines in SE Asia. When that lack of training was a factor in the crash, Boeing proceeded to blame Lion Air. Chutzpah! Released transcripts of messages show how Boeing employees worked in unison to ensure no extra simulator training was required. Great engineering culture obsessed with safety, this aint! We need to start accepting that whatever stellar engineering culture existed at Boeing is dead. We as a society need to stop scapegoating imaginary forces in the past and giving Boeing engineers a pass. Let's agree that strong regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of Boeing Products. [1] https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis/ https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merg... [2] https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-shareholder-first-culture/ https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-sharehold... [3] https://www.perell.com/blog/boeing-737-max https://www.perell.com/blog/boeing-737-max

blendergeek 6y ago
You fully and entirely misunderstand the argument. The argument is that after the McDonnel Douglas merger, the "idyllic culture of building great and safe products" was pillaged and destroyed by greedy corporate overlords. At this point (so goes the argument) all the "good engineers" who would have most certainly spoken up were laid off and were replaced with dime-a-dozen engineers who were overworked, underpaid, and didn't know what they were doing. In essence, the great engineering culture at Boeing was dead at the time of the 737 MAX debacle and the death of Boeing's previously near perfect engineering culture was directly responsible for the failure of the 737 MAX.
- grogenaut 6y ago
  Side note, there is a definite trend of blaming this on McDonnel Douglas. Growing up in St. Louis and now living in Seattle I notice it all the time. I do think the way you said it may be more true (with no evidence) that a management culture which had switched more to acquisition choked out good engineering culture. You are essentially correlating it with the acquisition in timeline. Note I'm in no way attacking you, just adding what I've seen online and heard in bars.
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  Sigh. The mythmaking contines. In the theory of causation, we distinguish between proximate vs. ultimate causality. Every proximate event can plausibly be claimed to be the cause for a subsequent event. As they say for want of a nail the war was lost. We don't say the war was lost because the nail was missing because 20 years ago they changed the way they cataloged the nails in the hardware store which sold the nails because the owner of the store changed their inventory system. What is plausibly the cause for the engineering fiasco of the 737 Max? Why go back to the merger in 1997 and why not blame the 9/11 attacks or the election of G.W Bush or Obama's for this disaster? Why go back to the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas? Because it allows Boeing engineers to deflect blame for the terrible product they built and foisted on the flying public by coasting on their past reputations.
  - 1123581321 6y ago

blendergeek 6y ago

You fully and entirely misunderstand the argument. The argument is that after the McDonnel Douglas merger, the "idyllic culture of building great and safe products" was pillaged and destroyed by greedy corporate overlords. At this point (so goes the argument) all the "good engineers" who would have most certainly spoken up were laid off and were replaced with dime-a-dozen engineers who were overworked, underpaid, and didn't know what they were doing. In essence, the great engineering culture at Boeing was dead at the time of the 737 MAX debacle and the death of Boeing's previously near perfect engineering culture was directly responsible for the failure of the 737 MAX.

grogenaut 6y ago
Side note, there is a definite trend of blaming this on McDonnel Douglas. Growing up in St. Louis and now living in Seattle I notice it all the time. I do think the way you said it may be more true (with no evidence) that a management culture which had switched more to acquisition choked out good engineering culture. You are essentially correlating it with the acquisition in timeline. Note I'm in no way attacking you, just adding what I've seen online and heard in bars.
haltingproblem 6y ago
Sigh. The mythmaking contines. In the theory of causation, we distinguish between proximate vs. ultimate causality. Every proximate event can plausibly be claimed to be the cause for a subsequent event. As they say for want of a nail the war was lost. We don't say the war was lost because the nail was missing because 20 years ago they changed the way they cataloged the nails in the hardware store which sold the nails because the owner of the store changed their inventory system. What is plausibly the cause for the engineering fiasco of the 737 Max? Why go back to the merger in 1997 and why not blame the 9/11 attacks or the election of G.W Bush or Obama's for this disaster? Why go back to the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas? Because it allows Boeing engineers to deflect blame for the terrible product they built and foisted on the flying public by coasting on their past reputations.
- 1123581321 6y ago