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This is what happens when Boeing is run by accountants and MBAs instead of engineers (as it once was). Short term financial "wins" like outsourcing eventually m
by cletus 5y ago
This is what happens when Boeing is run by accountants and MBAs instead of engineers (as it once was). Short term financial "wins" like outsourcing eventually make Boeing unrecognizable from the industrial behemoth that cranked out 747s in Everett.
What these finance and business people fail to understand (or simply don't care about) is that every point of outsourcing becomes a point of friction. You now need to negotiate specs, deliverables, timetables and payments. There are often perverse incentives that reward change orders. You often get cost blowouts from "cost plus" pricing.
- Victerius 5y agoIf I started my own aerospace company I would try to put in a legally binding rule that the majority of management and the executive team has to be engineers. But I don't know if an executive team can tie its successors hands like that. Unless the majority of voting shares remain in the hands of the family of the founder and successive generations commit to keep the company run by professional engineers. That, or a federal law.
- dboreham 5y agoThe medical business works this way, fwiw.
- Sebguer 5y agoHas that actually made things better?
- mbreese 5y agoWhat medical business is like this? You don't need to be a doctor to own or run a hospital or pharma company. The legal business is like this however. I'm fairly certain that, offices must be owned by lawyers. The thought being that if a law office was owned by a non-lawyer you'd have a conflict of interest if your boss told you to do something illegal or unethical.
- pinewurst 5y agoHow would that make a difference? Both the odious Harry Stonecipher at Boeing and the even more odious Jack Welch started as technical people.
- GuB-42 5y agoEngineers don't necessarily make good managers. Engineers actually have a narrow view of what a company like Boeing does. They may be the best at designing an airplane, but not at building, selling and flying it. So why not have executives be pilots, or even assembly line workers, they are all just as essential as engineers. What they do sometimes is have their top executives work every job first. Engineering of course, but also getting their hands dirty on the assembly lines, ordering from suppliers, maybe even fly the plane. So when they finish their years long path, they may be MBA, but they know what they are doing.
- ajxs 5y agoI've never worked in Aerospace. The best corporate workplace I've ever worked in (in terms of development culture) had a role that was somewhat akin to a developer's advocate. I can't recall its actual name now though. This person served as the most senior engineer in the department, and was responsible for the delivery of all engineering projects. They were given considerable latitude to uphold good development practices, even when it would conflict with senior management's priorities, and expectations. In my time there, I saw this manager constantly throw his hat into the ring, making the case for the right technical decisions against upper management. I've never worked in another workplace that had such a role, or such a person doing it. It was very early on in my career, and it unfortunately set a very high expectation for corporate software engineering culture that has never been met since.
- mook 5y agoRather than that, have the executive pay be delayed so that they have incentive to ensure the company is doing well in ten years. Essentially, similar to a vesting schedule.
- refurb 5y agoI’ve worked for technical experts and many of them are crappy managers. They don’t understand the bigger picture of the business or how the financial side works.
- thebigman433 5y agoI think this is better as a theory on HN than it would be in reality. There are plenty of engineers that are just as greedy, ruthless, and willing to do anything for a profit as the current execs. I doubt a leadership team half comprised of engineers would be significantly better than a current one.
- dralley 5y agoTwo excellent resources on this. [1] A memo written by analysts at Boeing who were clearly pissed off about the outsourcing situation and how counterproductive it all was, and [2] an article about the cultural changes that took place at Boeing after the executives from McDonnell Douglas took over. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/69746/hart-smith-on-outsourcing.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/6974... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing... That second article contains this incredible line from their CEO circa 2006 "When people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that was the intent, so that it’s run like a business rather than a great engineering firm.”