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Boeing explicitly started changing their routine operating procedures in second half 1990s. Unlike some claim, it actually started with a Boeing "lifer", but wh

by p_l 3y ago

Boeing explicitly started changing their routine operating procedures in second half 1990s. Unlike some claim, it actually started with a Boeing "lifer", but who also bought into Jack Welch management thought. They have considerably changed in the last 24 years, with memos about dangers of it coming from Boeing since ~2001, and that it wouldn't be something immediate but "creeping" issue.

roenxi 3y ago
I don't have anything much to say to that, but I can't resist observing in passing as a comment chain we've escalated from quarterly shortermism to a management transformation process that played out over 24 years at remarkable speed. If after a quarter-century Boeng have reduced their standards to still-better-than-road-safety, I don't think it is fair to say their management are doing anything that badly wrong.
- p_l 3y ago
  In pursuing quarter by quarter benefits, in fact some of it happened across only 2 years, they have set up long-term disaster that impacted their ability to design, build, and deliver - first with 7E7 (now known as Dreamliner), then with 737 MAXX series and the inability of Boeing to either take on a new venture like 757 upgrade or a new plane based on 7E7 project but in smaller class (This is, btw, big part of how A350 happened - reusing results of investment in A380). Some things take long to build (or correct), and very short time to destroy. And with Boeing it's more that the ongoing disaster known as MAXX took away the blinders from wider population in very... brutal and public way.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    That is a relatively consistent story across all the US-related industrial articles I take notice of on HN. The US can't build semiconductors, the US can't build ships, the US isn't building houses, struggles with infrastructure, etc. masks and ventilators through COVID. Now planes. This isn't being driven by management. Everyone can see what is happening from a mile away including shareholders. This is a rational response to the regulatory environment that US manufacturing operates in. And a specific symptom of that which is the US has failed to secure its access to cheap plentiful energy.
    - p_l 3y ago
      Except at no point did the regulatory environment change for Boeing in ways relevant to production - the rules actually got easier. Majority of 737 is produced in USA - with many critical subcontractors being former divisions of Boeing that got spun out because, paraphrasing "We will concentrate just on adding value in the final assembly step as well as coordination". It was explicitly done by the upper management, despite everyone pointing out it was bad move. Airbus also does a lot of subcontracting, but is way more integrated and reportedly works on "risk-share" basis with contractors while also providing considerable amounts of resources to ensuring the whole chain is safe and sound. Those are management decisions. P.S. a lot of regulatory decisions that block things like building infrastructure including housing are driven by "stockholders" that would be involved, because they sometimes perceive investments as endangering the existing value of their capital.

by p_l 3y ago

roenxi 3y ago

I don't have anything much to say to that, but I can't resist observing in passing as a comment chain we've escalated from quarterly shortermism to a management transformation process that played out over 24 years at remarkable speed. If after a quarter-century Boeng have reduced their standards to still-better-than-road-safety, I don't think it is fair to say their management are doing anything that badly wrong.

p_l 3y ago
In pursuing quarter by quarter benefits, in fact some of it happened across only 2 years, they have set up long-term disaster that impacted their ability to design, build, and deliver - first with 7E7 (now known as Dreamliner), then with 737 MAXX series and the inability of Boeing to either take on a new venture like 757 upgrade or a new plane based on 7E7 project but in smaller class (This is, btw, big part of how A350 happened - reusing results of investment in A380). Some things take long to build (or correct), and very short time to destroy. And with Boeing it's more that the ongoing disaster known as MAXX took away the blinders from wider population in very... brutal and public way.
- roenxi 3y ago
  That is a relatively consistent story across all the US-related industrial articles I take notice of on HN. The US can't build semiconductors, the US can't build ships, the US isn't building houses, struggles with infrastructure, etc. masks and ventilators through COVID. Now planes. This isn't being driven by management. Everyone can see what is happening from a mile away including shareholders. This is a rational response to the regulatory environment that US manufacturing operates in. And a specific symptom of that which is the US has failed to secure its access to cheap plentiful energy.
  - p_l 3y ago
    Except at no point did the regulatory environment change for Boeing in ways relevant to production - the rules actually got easier. Majority of 737 is produced in USA - with many critical subcontractors being former divisions of Boeing that got spun out because, paraphrasing "We will concentrate just on adding value in the final assembly step as well as coordination". It was explicitly done by the upper management, despite everyone pointing out it was bad move. Airbus also does a lot of subcontracting, but is way more integrated and reportedly works on "risk-share" basis with contractors while also providing considerable amounts of resources to ensuring the whole chain is safe and sound. Those are management decisions. P.S. a lot of regulatory decisions that block things like building infrastructure including housing are driven by "stockholders" that would be involved, because they sometimes perceive investments as endangering the existing value of their capital.