13 ms·

I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. The pr

I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. The problem is that, if you are doing this after many years of "deny the problem and ship it", the number of apparent problems is actually going to go up for a while. I wonder if Boeing's customers and shareholders will have enough patience for him to complete the transformation (assuming that's even possible in a company this size)?

Workaccount2 3y ago
Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. An engineering company run by a longtime manager with a background in accounting is in large part how Boeing got here. Fire the guy and get someone with a technical background in there.
- BoxFour 3y ago
  Like this guy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - BenoitP 3y ago
    I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants. Cultural change goes much deeper than changing the CEO. Boeing might not be salvageable on the cheap side. Decapitating the company at levels 1-4 may not even be enough. It may require acknowledging that changing the flight envelope and software-patching it was a mistake. This is a major can of worms on itself. This means a plane redesign, 6-8 years delay, and probably another round of WTO-unfriendly subsidy.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove. In truth, there is no evidence for the claim. Jack Welch was as much an engineer as an asshole.
      - bee_rider 3y ago
        Interesting that Grove’s company would go on to provide some of the best evidence that putting an engineer at the wheel is no magic bullet.
      - galleywest200 3y ago
        It is not about them being better leaders, but the engineer (hopefully) considering the efficacy of their design over bean counting.
        shiroiuma 3y ago
        Having an engineer as CEO can get you dumb decisions like thinking the Pentium4 Netburst architecture and dependency on expensive RAMBUS memory is a great idea.
      - shiroiuma 3y ago
        >The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove. Quite possible, and what's really ironic is that Grove's successor, Craig Barrett (who helped start the company with Grove), also an engineer, was a terrible CEO. He was the one who made a bunch of bad moves: P4/Netburst + RAMBUS, Itanic, refusing to adopt amd64 or make their own x64-64 ISA before AMD, etc. The company did poorly under his leadership and only turned around when his successor, Paul Otellini (an accountant IIRC) took over and moved to the "Core" CPU architecture.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    This is the guy that Boeing should have made CEO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally who has a much deeper background on the civil aviation side of things. Turned down for the Boeing CEO position, went to Ford and carried them through the Great recession as one of the big 3 auto makers that did not need a govt bailout. I'd say call him back, but he's probably enjoying retirement by now.
    - Gravityloss 3y ago
      Some people at Boeing criticize Mulally though. 777 program involved already a lot of outsourcing. There's a nice documentary about the program on youtube, "21st Century Jet": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+jet https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+je...
      - dv_dt 3y ago
        After Mulally left, Boeing went all in (to an extreme imho) on outsourcing. I don’t know enough to say if he would have done the same. But imho spinning off fundamental items like fuselages is a big source of inefficiency and risk right now for Boeing.
  - strangattractor 3y ago
    More like this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk Someone with an engineering background and a pinch of Vlad the Impaler;)
    - belter 3y ago
      If you would hire Elon Musk as CEO, he would substitute all the pilots by FSD beta version 2.3.4, and change all the airplane seats USB chargers for a Neuralink plug.
    - BoxFour 3y ago
      Whatever your opinion of Elon is, it’s extremely generous to say he comes from an engineering background and just flat-out wrong to say he comes from the type of traditional engineering background relevant to companies like Boeing (the PE type of engineering). If you approve of Elon as a leader, he is basically the embodiment of “you do not need to be an engineer to run a highly technical company”
      - rpmisms 3y ago
        I think describing Elon as a small-e engineer (not designing powertrains, but at least understanding them) is accurate, and saying that an an engineering-first mindset is important for companies like Boeing and SpaceX would ring true. Engineering background is different than engineering mindset.
        afavour 3y ago
        People contain multitudes. While I would agree that Elon has more of an engineer mindset than other CEOs I’m still not convinced that would amount to much. A look at Tesla build quality, or that ridiculous demo where the Cybertruck window smashed are just two things that immediately come to mind to cast doubt on Musk’s commitment to engineering. I think he’s a big picture guy, I absolutely think issues like those we're seeing with Boeing could happen under his watch.
        3y ago
- balderdash 3y ago
  I don’t think this a technical problem - it’s a matter of changing culture.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    It's frequently framed as an issue with Boing now having an accounting-driven culture instead of an engineering-driven culture. In that framing a CEO with engineering background is a logical choice to effect that culture change.
    - NoboruWataya 3y ago
      It was arguably under Muilenberg, an engineer, that many of the current issues with Boeing's culture were either created or allowed to flourish. I think it is "frequently framed" as an engineers-vs-accountants thing by engineers or others who like to think that STEM people can do no wrong.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        I am an engineee of sorts, and have zero illusions about the shit engineers can cause, and do.
        throwway120385 3y ago
        I think the real problem here is over-reliance on cost-savings as a single dimension of quality.
        hef19898 3y ago
        Cost savings and quality live on different scales so.
        throwway120385 3y ago
        If a customer wants to buy thousands of a widget at $1500 and you usually sell them at $2000 a widget but you can move the slider on maintainability or make an agreement that the customer accepts some reduced quality -- if that's something the two businesses can agree on and it's not a negligent change to make then it's probably worth prioritizing that. I think we might agree on that. Trying to figure out what to do in any given business situation is usually challenging because the devil is in the details. It happens that in this particular case, Boeing should be checking that their supplier installs bolts and drills holes correctly because their supplier has screwed it up so many times. But in a lot of industries, cheaping out on materials is a reasonable thing to do if your customers agree it's a reasonable thing to do and it's not going to kill anyone.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Ah yes the fantasy that an IC can just magic this all away. This would likely result in a CEO with no pull and a CFO that had all the hard power to call the shots. The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult. A company most be able to do both: build a quality and safe product and make a margin. It can’t exist without revenue. I’m guessing the real problem is somewhere between low quality or overworked and poorly trained line workers, complex systems, and a revenue strategy that obscures what the company is selling. It takes more than a random ic manager to fix that — but I agree they should come from that past maybe.
  - sebzim4500 3y ago
    >The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult. Is there another data point or are you just basing this off Boeing's issues?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The other datapoints have been merged into Boeing or they went away, Lockheed hasn't made a passenger plane for decades. Gulfstream doesn't really count I think, because it isn't in competition with either Boeing or Airbus.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to.
    - randmeerkat 3y ago
      > Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to. Other people with a similar perspective about rockets tried to convince Musk that as well. Thankfully he didn’t listen. You’re never going to realize gains that surpass the return on the S&P if you don’t take risks in business.
- spamizbad 3y ago
  I don't think having an engineer as a leader is some golden ticket to success. Its ultimately what ruined Nortel for example.
  - Twirrim 3y ago
    Same for Sun Microsystems.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Nor is it an indicator for good business ethics: exhibit A, the VW Diesel scandal.
    - fch42 3y ago
      Sun Microsystems never had an engineering-career CEO; whether Scott McNealy, Ed Zander, or Ponytail ... all on the sales side. No doubt it had strong "CTO" type people. Though not in the CEO, chairman or president/COO positions.
  - avalys 3y ago
    Selecting an engineer doesn’t absolve the board of the responsibility to choose the right guy. There are incompetent engineers, unethical engineers and there are engineers who are bad leaders. But an accountant as CEO is not going to restore a culture of engineering excellence.
    - lrem 3y ago
      Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. They’re there to set up an incentive system to further the goals of their choosing. Neither seems to call for deep understanding of neither. And no background absolves a CEO from building a surface understanding of all aspects of running the business. TBF, from my experience with VPs, technical background might be a hindrance to executives. The guy who used to work on databases worries about persistence, even though nobody raised that issue. Networking background? Oh well, good that I know why we put this many bits into this field, despite it only needs a couple bytes and we can afford megabytes. Sure, they know their job enough to leave enough time for the actual question. I even understand why they first interrogate the room about some arbitrary cog in the machine. Still makes me wonder if there aren’t better ways to do this.
- acomms 3y ago
  The "engineer CEO" you speak of is the one who was at the helm when all the mess kicked off.
- bookofjoe 3y ago
  Interesting. Last night I watched the excellent 2018 biopic "First Man" (starring Ryan Gosling) about Neil Armstrong and was struck by NASA's selection criteria for Gemini and Apollo astronauts: they required pilots with an engineering background. Frank Borman, chosen for Gemini and Apollo missions, "earned a Master of Science degree at Caltech in 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point." [Wikipedia] "After retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1970, Borman became senior vice president for operations at Eastern Air Lines. He became chief executive officer of Eastern in 1975, and chairman of the board in 1976. Under his leadership, Eastern went through the four most profitable years in its history...." [Wikipedia]
- saalweachter 3y ago
  I think you also need to be expecting the CEO to "clean house" at the top if you realistically want anything to change. The CEO may set the culture, as much as that is set from the top down, but by the time a company actually starts having problems visible to the outside, its entire suite of executives, VPs, etc, have optimized their career for the sort of problematic attitude the previous CEOs demanded.
- andyjohnson0 3y ago
  > Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. I'd argue they need an effective engineering culture, and leadership that enables and values and fights for it, not a former-engineer figurehead. Good engineers within Boeing need to be enabled to do their job properly, within normal business constraints, and bad engineers need to be removed. The business needs to understand that good engineering is a necessity and a profit centre in aerospace. I don't know how they'd achieve this change. The company seems to have rotted from the head down since it merged with McDonnel Douglas, and its possible that the senior leadership lack the self awareness to comprehend the problem.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Move headquarters back to Puget Sound. It’s the only way.
  - AaronM 3y ago
    I think the MD merge gets the blame by many, however, it seems as though the shift in the market that started around the same time to optimize shareholder value at all costs is really to blame.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      I think it's both in a sort of chicken and egg sort of situation. The MD execs taking over Boeing had a terrible effect on safety culture, but the reason the MD execs took over in the first place was because of this shift in the market that you describe. If the pre-MD Boeing management had managed to retain control of the company things may have been ok from a quality and safety perspective... but the stock would have declined because they would have refused to chase short-term quarterly success at the expense of the long term.
      - p_l 3y ago
        Phil Condit was a Boeing engineering lifer who spearheaded the first steps that led to things described as "MD takeover". And was still in charge of 7E7 (today's Dreamliner) when the excessive outsourcing and cost targets began.
- _xerces_ 3y ago
  Muilenburg was an aerospace engineer by training, that is how he ended up at Boeing. To be fair, though it sounds like he was on the management track early on, so not sure how much engineering he did after graduation.
- OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  I think you think Boeing's purpose in life is to make planes. I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs and short term traders. If airplanes come out of the company, it's a random side-effect.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    > I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs... Plausibly, yes. > ... and short term traders. Nope. Not even on the radar. Stockholders, maybe. Not short term traders. Short term traders have no say on the makeup of the board, nor on executive compensation. They therefore have zero input into the direction of the company.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  I don't buy the oft-repeated claim that you can re-make a company simply by replacing the CEO. I don't believe that CEOs in large companies have much influence on the company's direction, except in terms of decisions to downsize/outsource, how to use money, and who's on the board. There's only so much one person can do (and accordingly, I think all big-company CEOs are vastly overpaid). Moving the deckchairs in the boardroom isn't going to solve systemic problems in a company.
  - twh270 3y ago
    You can't "re-make" a company by replacing the CEO/CxO, but I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the influence of the c-suite either. What they care about and talk about filters down, often through unofficial channels of communication, and it does have an impact on how front-line employees do their work. Of course, this does take time and often involves some changes in management as well.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      I've been watching the Post Office Horizon Inquiry sessions, and reading transcripts. From what I've seen, a completely new board would have no noticeable effect on the PO; they'd have to remove most of the management. It looks as if the company ethos is driven by line management. Well, that really means tearing the company up completely. I can't see how a new board could effect reform. And replacing all the middle management would destroy the company. And as you say, it takes time for a new culture to move through the layers; but the PO doesn't have time. Does Boeing? I realize the companies are very different, but both have marinated in an unhealthy culture for a long time.
      - kelnos 3y ago
        If replacing all of middle management to effect an essential change will destroy a company, then that company maybe needs to be destroyed. Because that's how the CEO makes big change happen: management -- from the C-suite down to line managers -- needs to get on board with that change. If they refuse, they get fired and are replaced by people who will carry out the change. If this process will take too long to save the company, then... again, maybe the company needs to fail.
- ken47 3y ago
  Boeing apparently can't withstand the immense quarterly financial scrutiny it is under without making dangerous engineering trade offs. Time to take the company private?
  - AniseAbyss 3y ago
    [dead]
  - hef19898 3y ago
    At 420?
lotsofpulp 3y ago
Boeing’s customers have no choice. There is only one other option in town, and Airbus is at capacity for quite a few more years. The only threat Boeing has is governments fining them. So as long as governments (or the US government) let Boeing continue to function, there should be sufficient time to fix culture.
- wasmitnetzen 3y ago
  Shareholders might have an opinion though, and Ryanair buying MAX's at a discount when nobody else wanted them might not make them happy.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    > Ryanair buying MAX's at a discount I mean, to be fair this plays right into Ryanair's strategy. Want a door plug? Pay extra.
    - anticensor 3y ago
      No, want a door plug? Pay less (as you would be paying by risking your life).
      - magicalhippo 3y ago
        Yea they could play it both ways, before and after the plug leaves the plane...
        xattt 3y ago
        They could still charge extra depending on your pro/con door plug attitude with rationale matching your beliefs as to why they’re charging more.
phkahler 3y ago
>> I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. I thought I read they were planning to cut back on quality control staff this year. Was that true? Did it change?
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Interesting, source?
  - procflora 3y ago
    I'm not sure about this year, but here is an article from 2020 between the MAX crashes about that very thing. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-overhauls-its-quality-controls-more-high-tech-tracking-but-fewer-inspectors/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein... Ed Pierson, a Boeing whistleblower on quality, has also commented on similar efforts by the company a couple of months later. https://www.edpierson.com/removal-of-quality-control-inspections-adds-risk-to-boeing-airplanes https://www.edpierson.com/removal-of-quality-control-inspect...
mc32 3y ago
I’m sorry, but too little, too late. It’s time for a new executive team incl CEO. They breached the trust of their customers. I want to see new leadership, not someone who suddenly turns a new leaf.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
If this is what is happening, then that is encouraging. Anytime a corporation had 'culture of silence'. Then turns it around to be 'speak up'. There is a backlog of issues that comes out before the situation improves.
CodeWriter23 3y ago
I said this in a previous thread, a QA/QC/SOP firm either has a culture where nobody would dare violate SOP or it doesn’t. It’s not about “admitting” a problem, they already have the SOPs and inspection protocols that reveal defects and proscribe ways to identify, document and address any defect. But as the QA guys where I work say, they are a cost center. There are two real questions here, can Boeing strictly follow their QA/QC regime and remain profitable. Second, can they get through their current period where FAA inspectors have set up shop on their premises and are now effectively another layer of supervisors. They’re in the stage now where the FAA are on the shop floor basically as cops to ensure Boeing actually does what they said they would do via the documentation in their Quality suite. They either have the war chest or the financial backing to pull that off without an immediate price increase or they’re toast.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Wonder if this is problem. Current QA/SOP's are onerous and very expensive to follow. But are based on having someone 'monitor' and 'check' everything. So two people, someone doing the work, and someone checking the work. But seems like the old Boeing culture, was each employee cared about quality, so would check themselves. So needed less QA people, because everyone would 'do the right thing'. So now that the culture is broken. Enforcing current QA/SOP's with additional QA people is un-profitable.
- dylan604 3y ago
  > they already have the SOPs and inspection protocols that reveal defects and proscribe ways to identify, document and address any defect it's great to have those protocols, but when employees are retaliated against for bringing issues with no corrective changes made, what's the point in having the protocols?
  - CodeWriter23 3y ago
    Any of that happens at the supervisor or mid-level manager level and should be taken to HR. By complying with bullying, the employees are not only committing a federal crime, they also risk being debarred by the FAA. That means they no longer work in the Aviation Industry.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Did the CEO change last month or are you talking about the same one fully into covering everything up just until now?
mayneack 3y ago
For what it's worth, in "Flying Blind", the book written about the first round of 737 max issues, the author has a pretty negative outlook on Calhoun as being mostly aligned with Muilenburg. > Robison, however, finds little reason for optimism. While Boeing has now accepted responsibility for one of the crashes as part of a settlement, no one at the company besides Forkner has been charged with a crime. Muilenburg was ousted as C.E.O., but still collected a $60 million golden parachute. After being grounded for more than a year, the 737 Max is back in service. And today, Boeing is led by Dave Calhoun, another Jack Welch protégé who was on the Boeing board for years, and was intimately involved in the company’s botched response to the crashes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/books/review/peter-robison-flying-blind-boeing-737.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/books/review/peter-robiso... https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind-by-peter-robison/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind...
- eduction 3y ago
  Ya, Calhoun has been there four years already, so he's had plenty of time. Also, he decided to continue outsourcing to Spirit despite Spirit's known issues. Everything in your post indicates he's not inclined to make fundamental alterations to the post Stonecipher strategy which fits with all this.
  - OhMeadhbh 3y ago
    Calhoun's been at Boeing as a Director since 2009. Dude's definitely seen some things.
  - datavirtue 3y ago
    Spirit is technically not Boeing. It's Boeing.
- nimish 3y ago
  > Jack Welch protégé At this point pre-emptively firing any Jack Welch associated executive would probably be a good idea
missedthecue 3y ago
Muilenburg was an engineer who worked his way up to CEO at Boeing. He totally mishandled the 737 Max crisis. Meanwhile, Airbus had an engineer CEO who nearly bankrupted the firm with the A380 project. I think trying to put management into buckets doesn't work very well. Some engineer CEOs have bad product sense and some sales CEOs have great product sense. I mean, Steve Jobs for crying out loud.
- foobarian 3y ago
  Couple other modern examples are AMD and Nvidia leaders.
PaulHoule 3y ago
It's not just about safety, it's about the flying experience and environmental responsibility. If you think "flying sucks" it's probably because you've flown in a 737 and similar (A320) aircraft. Many people find it highly stressful to fly in a 737-class airplane because the curve of the fuselage is circular. My neck starts to lock up just thinking about it, but you don't have the same problem riding in a car, bus, or train because those vehicles have straight sides. Modern aircraft like the A220 and E2-Jet have a shape compatible with the human body such that today's "regional jets" feel more like riding in a widebody airliner than a 737. It's the kind of thing that's hard to believe until you experience it for yourself. The 737 is exceptionally loud, particularly for the flight crew, but also for the passengers and innocent people on the ground. If you think flying sucks it could be because you remember walking out of a 737 with your ears ringing -- and nobody told you it doesn't have to be that way. The A320 has a reliable fly-by-wire system with numerous benefits, not least the plane being able to automatically cancel out some turbulence, another small thing that leaves you feeling better when you reach your destination. The 737 struggles to take off under good conditions, requiring much more runway than many much larger planes. Next summer you'll see headlines that "airplanes" are grounded at some airports in the US Southwest, you should replace "airplanes" with "737s". Airplane manufacturers have wasted enough resources on widebody airliners that nobody wants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 and the industry needs to get real to the fact that narrowbody airliners are responsible for most of the flights and most of the social and environmental impact of aviation: domestic flyers in the U.S. deserve something better than a 1967 design.
- foobarian 3y ago
  Literally none of those issues were a problem for me and I've flown a lot over the past 30 years. The #1 issue for me is leg room, being unusually tall. Headroom was never a problem :-)
- gruez 3y ago
  > domestic flyers in the U.S. deserve something better than a 1967 design. Or maybe the market has spoken. Similar to how people complain about lack of legroom but proceed to book with airlines that have less legroom because it's cheaper, they're happy to fly on 1967 design planes to save a buck.
PedroBatista 3y ago
Unfortunately no. He now adopted the "admit the problem and fix it" attitude because he was "caught", before that was business as usual for Boeing. It was/is more a "don't ask, don't tell", dump the risk on other separate entities/companies and cross your fingers because we need to get those planes out of the assembly line as fast and cheaply as possible no matter what. Boeing is and has been under pressure, but it's their own fault. They have been fucking around for DECADES now and when there were "difficulties" they always called the US government to "facilitate" sales or their buddies inside the regulatory bodies to put the green check on their garbage. Nothing about this is news, it has been known for years and years. Unfortunately Boeing always has a sweet defense contract waiting to compensate any "rough year", so they keep fucking around..
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Unfortunately Boeing always has a sweet defense contract waiting to compensate any "rough year", so they keep fucking around. And because once airlines have their fleets locked into a specific airplane brand, swapping it for the competition is almost impossible without crazy expense, so they coasted on this vendor lock in for decades knowing their existing customers have no choice but to keep buying their planes. And also probably because "nobody ever got fired for buying Boeing".
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    That doesn't sound likely. They can wait for existing planes to age out and then buy a competitor's planes. For many reasons including fuel efficiency, when an airline retires a plane they are not going to replace it with the exact same plane. So some levels of pilot retraining is expected.
    - cschmatzler 3y ago
      The A320neo family has a backlog of over 7000 orders. As much as Airbus is ramping up production in the past few years, with their current ~600 goal for 2024 that’s still a 12 year wait if you order one today.
throw7 3y ago
I don't get that impression at all. He only went on a PR fest the day after boeing stock tanked (which was after the weekend the door plug flew off). He was actively trying to get faa exceptions to other max's to get them in the air prior.
guardiangod 3y ago
I have the exact opposite impression. I don't know why the board hasn't fired him yet. He was brought in to change the company culture. It's been 4 years and this happen. 4 years is a long time, and this failure shows that he failed at what he was hired for (no, making money is not his main job.) Of course he is going to say whatever is needed to save his job, but in my eyes Boeing should move on and choose someone else. Time is running out.
cm2187 3y ago
What can those customers do? The airlines that have lots of 787 max have a vested interest in being able to use them. The whole max mcas debacle happened because of the high cost of pilot re-certification. So what are they going to do, re-certify all their boeing pilots to fly airbus? Airbus won't even have the capacity to take over all of boeing's market share. And the US can't let that happen anyway from a strategic point of view. It's not like customers picking a brand of detergent on a shelf.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  They cannot drop the aircraft. They simply have to keep using them. The only option is lawyers. The airlines could demand compensation from Boeing for any time/effort put into rectifying unreasonable issues with recently-delivered Boeing aircraft.

Workaccount2 3y ago

Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. An engineering company run by a longtime manager with a background in accounting is in large part how Boeing got here. Fire the guy and get someone with a technical background in there.

BoxFour 3y ago
Like this guy? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- BenoitP 3y ago
  I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants. Cultural change goes much deeper than changing the CEO. Boeing might not be salvageable on the cheap side. Decapitating the company at levels 1-4 may not even be enough. It may require acknowledging that changing the flight envelope and software-patching it was a mistake. This is a major can of worms on itself. This means a plane redesign, 6-8 years delay, and probably another round of WTO-unfriendly subsidy.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > I've read that he was the token engineer in the see of accountants, MBAs and consultants The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove. In truth, there is no evidence for the claim. Jack Welch was as much an engineer as an asshole.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      Interesting that Grove’s company would go on to provide some of the best evidence that putting an engineer at the wheel is no magic bullet.
    - galleywest200 3y ago
      It is not about them being better leaders, but the engineer (hopefully) considering the efficacy of their design over bean counting.
      - shiroiuma 3y ago
        Having an engineer as CEO can get you dumb decisions like thinking the Pentium4 Netburst architecture and dependency on expensive RAMBUS memory is a great idea.
    - shiroiuma 3y ago
      >The myth that engineers make better leaders may have originated with Andy Grove. Quite possible, and what's really ironic is that Grove's successor, Craig Barrett (who helped start the company with Grove), also an engineer, was a terrible CEO. He was the one who made a bunch of bad moves: P4/Netburst + RAMBUS, Itanic, refusing to adopt amd64 or make their own x64-64 ISA before AMD, etc. The company did poorly under his leadership and only turned around when his successor, Paul Otellini (an accountant IIRC) took over and moved to the "Core" CPU architecture.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  This is the guy that Boeing should have made CEO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally who has a much deeper background on the civil aviation side of things. Turned down for the Boeing CEO position, went to Ford and carried them through the Great recession as one of the big 3 auto makers that did not need a govt bailout. I'd say call him back, but he's probably enjoying retirement by now.
  - Gravityloss 3y ago
    Some people at Boeing criticize Mulally though. 777 program involved already a lot of outsourcing. There's a nice documentary about the program on youtube, "21st Century Jet": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+jet https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=21st+century+je...
    - dv_dt 3y ago
      After Mulally left, Boeing went all in (to an extreme imho) on outsourcing. I don’t know enough to say if he would have done the same. But imho spinning off fundamental items like fuselages is a big source of inefficiency and risk right now for Boeing.
- strangattractor 3y ago
  More like this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk Someone with an engineering background and a pinch of Vlad the Impaler;)
  - belter 3y ago
    If you would hire Elon Musk as CEO, he would substitute all the pilots by FSD beta version 2.3.4, and change all the airplane seats USB chargers for a Neuralink plug.
  - BoxFour 3y ago
    Whatever your opinion of Elon is, it’s extremely generous to say he comes from an engineering background and just flat-out wrong to say he comes from the type of traditional engineering background relevant to companies like Boeing (the PE type of engineering). If you approve of Elon as a leader, he is basically the embodiment of “you do not need to be an engineer to run a highly technical company”
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      I think describing Elon as a small-e engineer (not designing powertrains, but at least understanding them) is accurate, and saying that an an engineering-first mindset is important for companies like Boeing and SpaceX would ring true. Engineering background is different than engineering mindset.
      - afavour 3y ago
        People contain multitudes. While I would agree that Elon has more of an engineer mindset than other CEOs I’m still not convinced that would amount to much. A look at Tesla build quality, or that ridiculous demo where the Cybertruck window smashed are just two things that immediately come to mind to cast doubt on Musk’s commitment to engineering. I think he’s a big picture guy, I absolutely think issues like those we're seeing with Boeing could happen under his watch.
        3y ago
balderdash 3y ago
I don’t think this a technical problem - it’s a matter of changing culture.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  It's frequently framed as an issue with Boing now having an accounting-driven culture instead of an engineering-driven culture. In that framing a CEO with engineering background is a logical choice to effect that culture change.
  - NoboruWataya 3y ago
    It was arguably under Muilenberg, an engineer, that many of the current issues with Boeing's culture were either created or allowed to flourish. I think it is "frequently framed" as an engineers-vs-accountants thing by engineers or others who like to think that STEM people can do no wrong.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      I am an engineee of sorts, and have zero illusions about the shit engineers can cause, and do.
      - throwway120385 3y ago
        I think the real problem here is over-reliance on cost-savings as a single dimension of quality.
        hef19898 3y ago
        Cost savings and quality live on different scales so.
        throwway120385 3y ago
        If a customer wants to buy thousands of a widget at $1500 and you usually sell them at $2000 a widget but you can move the slider on maintainability or make an agreement that the customer accepts some reduced quality -- if that's something the two businesses can agree on and it's not a negligent change to make then it's probably worth prioritizing that. I think we might agree on that. Trying to figure out what to do in any given business situation is usually challenging because the devil is in the details. It happens that in this particular case, Boeing should be checking that their supplier installs bolts and drills holes correctly because their supplier has screwed it up so many times. But in a lot of industries, cheaping out on materials is a reasonable thing to do if your customers agree it's a reasonable thing to do and it's not going to kill anyone.
tsunamifury 3y ago
Ah yes the fantasy that an IC can just magic this all away. This would likely result in a CEO with no pull and a CFO that had all the hard power to call the shots. The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult. A company most be able to do both: build a quality and safe product and make a margin. It can’t exist without revenue. I’m guessing the real problem is somewhere between low quality or overworked and poorly trained line workers, complex systems, and a revenue strategy that obscures what the company is selling. It takes more than a random ic manager to fix that — but I agree they should come from that past maybe.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  >The reality seems to be, for some reason, building profitable and safe planes in America is becoming increasingly difficult. Is there another data point or are you just basing this off Boeing's issues?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The other datapoints have been merged into Boeing or they went away, Lockheed hasn't made a passenger plane for decades. Gulfstream doesn't really count I think, because it isn't in competition with either Boeing or Airbus.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to.
  - randmeerkat 3y ago
    > Building airplanes it a bit like running a restaurant... it's a business no sane person would willingly go in to. Other people with a similar perspective about rockets tried to convince Musk that as well. Thankfully he didn’t listen. You’re never going to realize gains that surpass the return on the S&P if you don’t take risks in business.
spamizbad 3y ago
I don't think having an engineer as a leader is some golden ticket to success. Its ultimately what ruined Nortel for example.
- Twirrim 3y ago
  Same for Sun Microsystems.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Nor is it an indicator for good business ethics: exhibit A, the VW Diesel scandal.
  - fch42 3y ago
    Sun Microsystems never had an engineering-career CEO; whether Scott McNealy, Ed Zander, or Ponytail ... all on the sales side. No doubt it had strong "CTO" type people. Though not in the CEO, chairman or president/COO positions.
- avalys 3y ago
  Selecting an engineer doesn’t absolve the board of the responsibility to choose the right guy. There are incompetent engineers, unethical engineers and there are engineers who are bad leaders. But an accountant as CEO is not going to restore a culture of engineering excellence.
  - lrem 3y ago
    Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. They’re there to set up an incentive system to further the goals of their choosing. Neither seems to call for deep understanding of neither. And no background absolves a CEO from building a surface understanding of all aspects of running the business. TBF, from my experience with VPs, technical background might be a hindrance to executives. The guy who used to work on databases worries about persistence, even though nobody raised that issue. Networking background? Oh well, good that I know why we put this many bits into this field, despite it only needs a couple bytes and we can afford megabytes. Sure, they know their job enough to leave enough time for the actual question. I even understand why they first interrogate the room about some arbitrary cog in the machine. Still makes me wonder if there aren’t better ways to do this.
acomms 3y ago
The "engineer CEO" you speak of is the one who was at the helm when all the mess kicked off.
bookofjoe 3y ago
Interesting. Last night I watched the excellent 2018 biopic "First Man" (starring Ryan Gosling) about Neil Armstrong and was struck by NASA's selection criteria for Gemini and Apollo astronauts: they required pilots with an engineering background. Frank Borman, chosen for Gemini and Apollo missions, "earned a Master of Science degree at Caltech in 1957, and then became an assistant professor of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics at West Point." [Wikipedia] "After retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1970, Borman became senior vice president for operations at Eastern Air Lines. He became chief executive officer of Eastern in 1975, and chairman of the board in 1976. Under his leadership, Eastern went through the four most profitable years in its history...." [Wikipedia]
saalweachter 3y ago
I think you also need to be expecting the CEO to "clean house" at the top if you realistically want anything to change. The CEO may set the culture, as much as that is set from the top down, but by the time a company actually starts having problems visible to the outside, its entire suite of executives, VPs, etc, have optimized their career for the sort of problematic attitude the previous CEOs demanded.
andyjohnson0 3y ago
> Boeing needs to dump the CEO and install someone from an engineering lineage if they want to build their reputation back. I'd argue they need an effective engineering culture, and leadership that enables and values and fights for it, not a former-engineer figurehead. Good engineers within Boeing need to be enabled to do their job properly, within normal business constraints, and bad engineers need to be removed. The business needs to understand that good engineering is a necessity and a profit centre in aerospace. I don't know how they'd achieve this change. The company seems to have rotted from the head down since it merged with McDonnel Douglas, and its possible that the senior leadership lack the self awareness to comprehend the problem.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Move headquarters back to Puget Sound. It’s the only way.
- AaronM 3y ago
  I think the MD merge gets the blame by many, however, it seems as though the shift in the market that started around the same time to optimize shareholder value at all costs is really to blame.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    I think it's both in a sort of chicken and egg sort of situation. The MD execs taking over Boeing had a terrible effect on safety culture, but the reason the MD execs took over in the first place was because of this shift in the market that you describe. If the pre-MD Boeing management had managed to retain control of the company things may have been ok from a quality and safety perspective... but the stock would have declined because they would have refused to chase short-term quarterly success at the expense of the long term.
    - p_l 3y ago
      Phil Condit was a Boeing engineering lifer who spearheaded the first steps that led to things described as "MD takeover". And was still in charge of 7E7 (today's Dreamliner) when the excessive outsourcing and cost targets began.
_xerces_ 3y ago
Muilenburg was an aerospace engineer by training, that is how he ended up at Boeing. To be fair, though it sounds like he was on the management track early on, so not sure how much engineering he did after graduation.
OhMeadhbh 3y ago
I think you think Boeing's purpose in life is to make planes. I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs and short term traders. If airplanes come out of the company, it's a random side-effect.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > I think it's primary objective is to make money for execs... Plausibly, yes. > ... and short term traders. Nope. Not even on the radar. Stockholders, maybe. Not short term traders. Short term traders have no say on the makeup of the board, nor on executive compensation. They therefore have zero input into the direction of the company.
denton-scratch 3y ago
I don't buy the oft-repeated claim that you can re-make a company simply by replacing the CEO. I don't believe that CEOs in large companies have much influence on the company's direction, except in terms of decisions to downsize/outsource, how to use money, and who's on the board. There's only so much one person can do (and accordingly, I think all big-company CEOs are vastly overpaid). Moving the deckchairs in the boardroom isn't going to solve systemic problems in a company.
- twh270 3y ago
  You can't "re-make" a company by replacing the CEO/CxO, but I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss the influence of the c-suite either. What they care about and talk about filters down, often through unofficial channels of communication, and it does have an impact on how front-line employees do their work. Of course, this does take time and often involves some changes in management as well.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    I've been watching the Post Office Horizon Inquiry sessions, and reading transcripts. From what I've seen, a completely new board would have no noticeable effect on the PO; they'd have to remove most of the management. It looks as if the company ethos is driven by line management. Well, that really means tearing the company up completely. I can't see how a new board could effect reform. And replacing all the middle management would destroy the company. And as you say, it takes time for a new culture to move through the layers; but the PO doesn't have time. Does Boeing? I realize the companies are very different, but both have marinated in an unhealthy culture for a long time.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      If replacing all of middle management to effect an essential change will destroy a company, then that company maybe needs to be destroyed. Because that's how the CEO makes big change happen: management -- from the C-suite down to line managers -- needs to get on board with that change. If they refuse, they get fired and are replaced by people who will carry out the change. If this process will take too long to save the company, then... again, maybe the company needs to fail.
ken47 3y ago
Boeing apparently can't withstand the immense quarterly financial scrutiny it is under without making dangerous engineering trade offs. Time to take the company private?
- AniseAbyss 3y ago
  [dead]
- hef19898 3y ago
  At 420?

lotsofpulp 3y ago

Boeing’s customers have no choice. There is only one other option in town, and Airbus is at capacity for quite a few more years. The only threat Boeing has is governments fining them. So as long as governments (or the US government) let Boeing continue to function, there should be sufficient time to fix culture.

wasmitnetzen 3y ago
Shareholders might have an opinion though, and Ryanair buying MAX's at a discount when nobody else wanted them might not make them happy.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  > Ryanair buying MAX's at a discount I mean, to be fair this plays right into Ryanair's strategy. Want a door plug? Pay extra.
  - anticensor 3y ago
    No, want a door plug? Pay less (as you would be paying by risking your life).
    - magicalhippo 3y ago
      Yea they could play it both ways, before and after the plug leaves the plane...
      - xattt 3y ago
        They could still charge extra depending on your pro/con door plug attitude with rationale matching your beliefs as to why they’re charging more.

phkahler 3y ago

>> I do get the impression that the current Boeing CEO is attempting to turn the culture around, to a more "admit the problem and fix it" kind of attitude. I thought I read they were planning to cut back on quality control staff this year. Was that true? Did it change?

barbazoo 3y ago
Interesting, source?
- procflora 3y ago
  I'm not sure about this year, but here is an article from 2020 between the MAX crashes about that very thing. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-overhauls-its-quality-controls-more-high-tech-tracking-but-fewer-inspectors/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein... Ed Pierson, a Boeing whistleblower on quality, has also commented on similar efforts by the company a couple of months later. https://www.edpierson.com/removal-of-quality-control-inspections-adds-risk-to-boeing-airplanes https://www.edpierson.com/removal-of-quality-control-inspect...

mc32 3y ago

I’m sorry, but too little, too late. It’s time for a new executive team incl CEO. They breached the trust of their customers. I want to see new leadership, not someone who suddenly turns a new leaf.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

If this is what is happening, then that is encouraging. Anytime a corporation had 'culture of silence'. Then turns it around to be 'speak up'. There is a backlog of issues that comes out before the situation improves.

CodeWriter23 3y ago

I said this in a previous thread, a QA/QC/SOP firm either has a culture where nobody would dare violate SOP or it doesn’t. It’s not about “admitting” a problem, they already have the SOPs and inspection protocols that reveal defects and proscribe ways to identify, document and address any defect. But as the QA guys where I work say, they are a cost center. There are two real questions here, can Boeing strictly follow their QA/QC regime and remain profitable. Second, can they get through their current period where FAA inspectors have set up shop on their premises and are now effectively another layer of supervisors. They’re in the stage now where the FAA are on the shop floor basically as cops to ensure Boeing actually does what they said they would do via the documentation in their Quality suite. They either have the war chest or the financial backing to pull that off without an immediate price increase or they’re toast.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Wonder if this is problem. Current QA/SOP's are onerous and very expensive to follow. But are based on having someone 'monitor' and 'check' everything. So two people, someone doing the work, and someone checking the work. But seems like the old Boeing culture, was each employee cared about quality, so would check themselves. So needed less QA people, because everyone would 'do the right thing'. So now that the culture is broken. Enforcing current QA/SOP's with additional QA people is un-profitable.
dylan604 3y ago
> they already have the SOPs and inspection protocols that reveal defects and proscribe ways to identify, document and address any defect it's great to have those protocols, but when employees are retaliated against for bringing issues with no corrective changes made, what's the point in having the protocols?
- CodeWriter23 3y ago
  Any of that happens at the supervisor or mid-level manager level and should be taken to HR. By complying with bullying, the employees are not only committing a federal crime, they also risk being debarred by the FAA. That means they no longer work in the Aviation Industry.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Did the CEO change last month or are you talking about the same one fully into covering everything up just until now?

mayneack 3y ago

For what it's worth, in "Flying Blind", the book written about the first round of 737 max issues, the author has a pretty negative outlook on Calhoun as being mostly aligned with Muilenburg. > Robison, however, finds little reason for optimism. While Boeing has now accepted responsibility for one of the crashes as part of a settlement, no one at the company besides Forkner has been charged with a crime. Muilenburg was ousted as C.E.O., but still collected a $60 million golden parachute. After being grounded for more than a year, the 737 Max is back in service. And today, Boeing is led by Dave Calhoun, another Jack Welch protégé who was on the Boeing board for years, and was intimately involved in the company’s botched response to the crashes. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/books/review/peter-robison-flying-blind-boeing-737.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/books/review/peter-robiso... https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind-by-peter-robison/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646497/flying-blind...

eduction 3y ago
Ya, Calhoun has been there four years already, so he's had plenty of time. Also, he decided to continue outsourcing to Spirit despite Spirit's known issues. Everything in your post indicates he's not inclined to make fundamental alterations to the post Stonecipher strategy which fits with all this.
- OhMeadhbh 3y ago
  Calhoun's been at Boeing as a Director since 2009. Dude's definitely seen some things.
- datavirtue 3y ago
  Spirit is technically not Boeing. It's Boeing.
nimish 3y ago
> Jack Welch protégé At this point pre-emptively firing any Jack Welch associated executive would probably be a good idea

missedthecue 3y ago

Muilenburg was an engineer who worked his way up to CEO at Boeing. He totally mishandled the 737 Max crisis. Meanwhile, Airbus had an engineer CEO who nearly bankrupted the firm with the A380 project. I think trying to put management into buckets doesn't work very well. Some engineer CEOs have bad product sense and some sales CEOs have great product sense. I mean, Steve Jobs for crying out loud.

foobarian 3y ago
Couple other modern examples are AMD and Nvidia leaders.

PaulHoule 3y ago

It's not just about safety, it's about the flying experience and environmental responsibility. If you think "flying sucks" it's probably because you've flown in a 737 and similar (A320) aircraft. Many people find it highly stressful to fly in a 737-class airplane because the curve of the fuselage is circular. My neck starts to lock up just thinking about it, but you don't have the same problem riding in a car, bus, or train because those vehicles have straight sides. Modern aircraft like the A220 and E2-Jet have a shape compatible with the human body such that today's "regional jets" feel more like riding in a widebody airliner than a 737. It's the kind of thing that's hard to believe until you experience it for yourself. The 737 is exceptionally loud, particularly for the flight crew, but also for the passengers and innocent people on the ground. If you think flying sucks it could be because you remember walking out of a 737 with your ears ringing -- and nobody told you it doesn't have to be that way. The A320 has a reliable fly-by-wire system with numerous benefits, not least the plane being able to automatically cancel out some turbulence, another small thing that leaves you feeling better when you reach your destination. The 737 struggles to take off under good conditions, requiring much more runway than many much larger planes. Next summer you'll see headlines that "airplanes" are grounded at some airports in the US Southwest, you should replace "airplanes" with "737s". Airplane manufacturers have wasted enough resources on widebody airliners that nobody wants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380 and the industry needs to get real to the fact that narrowbody airliners are responsible for most of the flights and most of the social and environmental impact of aviation: domestic flyers in the U.S. deserve something better than a 1967 design.

foobarian 3y ago
Literally none of those issues were a problem for me and I've flown a lot over the past 30 years. The #1 issue for me is leg room, being unusually tall. Headroom was never a problem :-)
gruez 3y ago
> domestic flyers in the U.S. deserve something better than a 1967 design. Or maybe the market has spoken. Similar to how people complain about lack of legroom but proceed to book with airlines that have less legroom because it's cheaper, they're happy to fly on 1967 design planes to save a buck.

PedroBatista 3y ago

Unfortunately no. He now adopted the "admit the problem and fix it" attitude because he was "caught", before that was business as usual for Boeing. It was/is more a "don't ask, don't tell", dump the risk on other separate entities/companies and cross your fingers because we need to get those planes out of the assembly line as fast and cheaply as possible no matter what. Boeing is and has been under pressure, but it's their own fault. They have been fucking around for DECADES now and when there were "difficulties" they always called the US government to "facilitate" sales or their buddies inside the regulatory bodies to put the green check on their garbage. Nothing about this is news, it has been known for years and years. Unfortunately Boeing always has a sweet defense contract waiting to compensate any "rough year", so they keep fucking around..

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>Unfortunately Boeing always has a sweet defense contract waiting to compensate any "rough year", so they keep fucking around. And because once airlines have their fleets locked into a specific airplane brand, swapping it for the competition is almost impossible without crazy expense, so they coasted on this vendor lock in for decades knowing their existing customers have no choice but to keep buying their planes. And also probably because "nobody ever got fired for buying Boeing".
- kccqzy 3y ago
  That doesn't sound likely. They can wait for existing planes to age out and then buy a competitor's planes. For many reasons including fuel efficiency, when an airline retires a plane they are not going to replace it with the exact same plane. So some levels of pilot retraining is expected.
  - cschmatzler 3y ago
    The A320neo family has a backlog of over 7000 orders. As much as Airbus is ramping up production in the past few years, with their current ~600 goal for 2024 that’s still a 12 year wait if you order one today.

throw7 3y ago

I don't get that impression at all. He only went on a PR fest the day after boeing stock tanked (which was after the weekend the door plug flew off). He was actively trying to get faa exceptions to other max's to get them in the air prior.

guardiangod 3y ago

I have the exact opposite impression. I don't know why the board hasn't fired him yet. He was brought in to change the company culture. It's been 4 years and this happen. 4 years is a long time, and this failure shows that he failed at what he was hired for (no, making money is not his main job.) Of course he is going to say whatever is needed to save his job, but in my eyes Boeing should move on and choose someone else. Time is running out.

cm2187 3y ago

What can those customers do? The airlines that have lots of 787 max have a vested interest in being able to use them. The whole max mcas debacle happened because of the high cost of pilot re-certification. So what are they going to do, re-certify all their boeing pilots to fly airbus? Airbus won't even have the capacity to take over all of boeing's market share. And the US can't let that happen anyway from a strategic point of view. It's not like customers picking a brand of detergent on a shelf.

sandworm101 3y ago
They cannot drop the aircraft. They simply have to keep using them. The only option is lawyers. The airlines could demand compensation from Boeing for any time/effort put into rectifying unreasonable issues with recently-delivered Boeing aircraft.