4 ms·

If a few people from a company you acquire can seemingly overthrow all principles and radically change the engineering culture, I'd offer that maybe the culture

by WJW 2y ago

If a few people from a company you acquire can seemingly overthrow all principles and radically change the engineering culture, I'd offer that maybe the culture at Boeing wasn't all that strong in the first place. In any case, the acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas was 27 years ago. You can't keep blaming that forever.

renegade-otter 2y ago
There is a link, however, because after the merger, most of the Boeing execs peaced out, letting the students of Jack Welch gut the company.
- buildsjets 2y ago
  My personal observation is that a series of incompetent executives from GE caused a LOT more damage to Boeing than any damage incurred from ex-McDonnell-Douglass executives. Boeing and GE have always had an excessively cozy relationship, predating the McD merger. For two of the past three decades, the corporate leaders of Boeing were former GE managers: Stonecipher (eight years as CEO and COO), McNerney (ten years) and Calhoun as from 2020 to present. It is fair to say that, because of the number of former GE top managers at Boeing, it almost turned into a division of GE. Sores: https://www.managerism.org/images/Thinkpiece38-Boeing-Part2.pdf https://www.managerism.org/images/Thinkpiece38-Boeing-Part2....
benoliver999 2y ago
You go in, fire replace or sideline anyone who isn't 100% profit motivated then the culture is gone, no? Time is then only going to make that worse
cogman10 2y ago
If those few people are in management and making hiring/firing decisions then yes, they can completely wipe out a culture. But also, wiping out a culture does take some time. You wouldn't expect it to completely change overnight. The 787 Dreamliner was completed in 2003, it was the last plane developed with the old Boeing culture. The 737 max was the first plane developed post merger 13 years later.
- buildsjets 2y ago
  The 787 was not even a figment of the imagination in 2003. Boeing had JUST cancelled the Sonic Cruiser at the very end of 2002. The 787 was not launched until mid 2004, a partially complete airframe was rolled out on 07/08/2007, then it was rolled right back in to be completed. First flight was in 2009, first delivery was 2011. Also note that the 737 MAX launched in 2011. So Boeing was just coming off an airplane program that was completed 4 years late and 14 Billion dollars over budget, and a lot of engineering staff was still busy certifying the derivative (stretch) versions. So Boeing had neither the budget or the staff to launch an all new aircraft, and instead chose to do a quick-and-dirty re-engineing of an existing airframe. The poor quality of the design and manufacturing of the 737 MAX is directly attributable to a failure to execute the 787 program, leading to the MAX being under-resourced. And let me tell you, the 787 was developed with just as many heritage Mcdonnell-Douglas personnel as Boeing personnel. John Hart-Smith, the Tech Fellow engineer who wrote the famous white paper decrying the level of outsourcing on the 787, always gets described as a "Boeing Engineer." He was at McDonnell-Douglass for nearly 30 years prior to getting a badge with a Boeing logo.
  - buildsjets 2y ago
    A link to Hart-Smith's paper, "OUT-SOURCED PROFITS –THE CORNERSTONE OF SUCCESSFUL SUBCONTRACTING" It has been posted as a front page article on HN a few times but did not generate much discussion. Interestingly, although it was released 4 years post-merger and has Boeing markings on it, it was released in the heritage McDonnell-Douglas document management system, as indicated by the "MDC 00K0096" document number. https://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2014130646.pdf https://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2014130646...
    - zerocrates 2y ago
      Since the paper's from 2001, did you mean previously to say that it decried the level of outsourcing on the DC-10 rather than the 787, the 787 being at "pre-figment" stage at that point? A fun little detail, the author approvingly cites a 737 redesign that accounts for additional work being done at the Wichita site in a section about internal outsourcing... of course that site would be spun out into the now-much-maligned Spirit AeroSystems a few years later.
indymike 2y ago
I was at a recruiting tech conference where a HR person from Boeing was talking about their impending age-out problem. Their average employee age was close to retirement.
- duxup 2y ago
  Gotta buy some guys out and bring up some fresh faces in those cases I think. Can't have everyone go home all at once. A local school district actually did that when they had a massive glut of older teachers. They offered buyouts to get a % of new younger teachers in the door so that it wasn't just one huge wave of new people just trying to get their footing all at once.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- datavirtue 2y ago
  This is a major problem at nearly every established company. I'm not seeing any signs of it getting solved.
throwup238 2y ago
You're right, it really wasn't that strong to begin with. Everyone talks about Boeing's engineering culture but this all took place in the context of the 1990s after the DoD started to unwind its anti-Soviet doctrine and retooling the armed forces for other enemies. There was less money to go around in the defense industry and everyone was downsizing so the engineering culture at Boeing was at risk if not already undermined by layoffs. The 1990s also brought a global slump in aircraft sales which hit their commercial aviation divisions really hard and Boeing tried to age-out the most expensive workers that would have been the backbone of the culture. Lockheed had just merged with Martin Marietta to become Lockheed Martin and that goaded Boeing's leadership to blunder into a FOMO merger with McDonnell-Douglas. On top of that, the US government itself actually paid bonuses to the executives who got the LM deal done so the incentives were rotten from the start. I've also heard rumors that Boeing execs received pressure from the DoD to acquire McDonnell-Douglas to prevent it from going bankrupt so they might not have been entirely willing from the start. The latter had just lost some pretty large contracts to competitors and was at risk of going bust entirely which was an unacceptable vendor risk to the DoD. The DoD didn't have the money to prop it up directly so instead might have used a third party.
limpbizkitfan 2y ago
If Boeing’s product was something less necessary, and held in lower esteem, like military aircraft, a lot of these QA issues (and clear lack of ethics) would fall by the wayside in terms of press coverage. Boeing is not the only company that has wrung itself dry with goals of growth-over-growth in terms of stock dividends. Planes require so much validation and Boeing aircraft were held in very high esteem, but these attributes are just cows to milk in the eyes of the “smartest” investor. Boeing is the canary, the first to erode, because they set high standards for themselves and have to meet stringent regulatory standards. I won’t be at all surprised when other companies with less important products begin to display fraying edges.
- kunai 2y ago
  What? How exactly are military aircraft "held in low esteem?" If anything, it's the exact opposite.
  - limpbizkitfan 2y ago
    The initial batches of F-35 rusted to pieces in 3 months of service. The Sikorsky MH-53E has a kapton defect and has been dropping out of the sky for decades. Commercial aircraft aren’t filled with well paid people who signed a waiver saying they’re OK with the risk of dying. It’s a completely different space. A fighter pilot crashing isn’t anything compared with a plane going down with a hundred souls aboard
    - dragonwriter 2y ago
      > Commercial aircraft aren’t filled with well paid people who signed a waiver saying they’re OK with the risk of dying. Neither are military aircraft (especially ones that carry more than just a pilot and navigator/RIO), generally, unless “well-paid” is defined broadly enough to be equivalent to just “paid”.
dataflow 2y ago
This isn't a few random people, it's the executives at the top...
watwut 2y ago
Yes, change of few decision makers on top in charge of hiring or money or anything similar will change the culture no matter how robust it was. Culture is not magic, it is determined from top.
banish-m4 2y ago
Incorrect conflation between hierarchal politics and amorphous culture. The management of Boeing was essentially replaced during the merger. It's not the "strength" of Boeing's culture that matters, but the quality of its work.

by WJW 2y ago

renegade-otter 2y ago

There is a link, however, because after the merger, most of the Boeing execs peaced out, letting the students of Jack Welch gut the company.

buildsjets 2y ago
My personal observation is that a series of incompetent executives from GE caused a LOT more damage to Boeing than any damage incurred from ex-McDonnell-Douglass executives. Boeing and GE have always had an excessively cozy relationship, predating the McD merger. For two of the past three decades, the corporate leaders of Boeing were former GE managers: Stonecipher (eight years as CEO and COO), McNerney (ten years) and Calhoun as from 2020 to present. It is fair to say that, because of the number of former GE top managers at Boeing, it almost turned into a division of GE. Sores: https://www.managerism.org/images/Thinkpiece38-Boeing-Part2.pdf https://www.managerism.org/images/Thinkpiece38-Boeing-Part2....

benoliver999 2y ago

You go in, fire replace or sideline anyone who isn't 100% profit motivated then the culture is gone, no? Time is then only going to make that worse

cogman10 2y ago

If those few people are in management and making hiring/firing decisions then yes, they can completely wipe out a culture. But also, wiping out a culture does take some time. You wouldn't expect it to completely change overnight. The 787 Dreamliner was completed in 2003, it was the last plane developed with the old Boeing culture. The 737 max was the first plane developed post merger 13 years later.

buildsjets 2y ago
The 787 was not even a figment of the imagination in 2003. Boeing had JUST cancelled the Sonic Cruiser at the very end of 2002. The 787 was not launched until mid 2004, a partially complete airframe was rolled out on 07/08/2007, then it was rolled right back in to be completed. First flight was in 2009, first delivery was 2011. Also note that the 737 MAX launched in 2011. So Boeing was just coming off an airplane program that was completed 4 years late and 14 Billion dollars over budget, and a lot of engineering staff was still busy certifying the derivative (stretch) versions. So Boeing had neither the budget or the staff to launch an all new aircraft, and instead chose to do a quick-and-dirty re-engineing of an existing airframe. The poor quality of the design and manufacturing of the 737 MAX is directly attributable to a failure to execute the 787 program, leading to the MAX being under-resourced. And let me tell you, the 787 was developed with just as many heritage Mcdonnell-Douglas personnel as Boeing personnel. John Hart-Smith, the Tech Fellow engineer who wrote the famous white paper decrying the level of outsourcing on the 787, always gets described as a "Boeing Engineer." He was at McDonnell-Douglass for nearly 30 years prior to getting a badge with a Boeing logo.
- buildsjets 2y ago
  A link to Hart-Smith's paper, "OUT-SOURCED PROFITS –THE CORNERSTONE OF SUCCESSFUL SUBCONTRACTING" It has been posted as a front page article on HN a few times but did not generate much discussion. Interestingly, although it was released 4 years post-merger and has Boeing markings on it, it was released in the heritage McDonnell-Douglas document management system, as indicated by the "MDC 00K0096" document number. https://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2014130646.pdf https://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2014130646...
  - zerocrates 2y ago
    Since the paper's from 2001, did you mean previously to say that it decried the level of outsourcing on the DC-10 rather than the 787, the 787 being at "pre-figment" stage at that point? A fun little detail, the author approvingly cites a 737 redesign that accounts for additional work being done at the Wichita site in a section about internal outsourcing... of course that site would be spun out into the now-much-maligned Spirit AeroSystems a few years later.

indymike 2y ago

I was at a recruiting tech conference where a HR person from Boeing was talking about their impending age-out problem. Their average employee age was close to retirement.

duxup 2y ago
Gotta buy some guys out and bring up some fresh faces in those cases I think. Can't have everyone go home all at once. A local school district actually did that when they had a massive glut of older teachers. They offered buyouts to get a % of new younger teachers in the door so that it wasn't just one huge wave of new people just trying to get their footing all at once.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
datavirtue 2y ago
This is a major problem at nearly every established company. I'm not seeing any signs of it getting solved.

throwup238 2y ago

You're right, it really wasn't that strong to begin with. Everyone talks about Boeing's engineering culture but this all took place in the context of the 1990s after the DoD started to unwind its anti-Soviet doctrine and retooling the armed forces for other enemies. There was less money to go around in the defense industry and everyone was downsizing so the engineering culture at Boeing was at risk if not already undermined by layoffs. The 1990s also brought a global slump in aircraft sales which hit their commercial aviation divisions really hard and Boeing tried to age-out the most expensive workers that would have been the backbone of the culture. Lockheed had just merged with Martin Marietta to become Lockheed Martin and that goaded Boeing's leadership to blunder into a FOMO merger with McDonnell-Douglas. On top of that, the US government itself actually paid bonuses to the executives who got the LM deal done so the incentives were rotten from the start. I've also heard rumors that Boeing execs received pressure from the DoD to acquire McDonnell-Douglas to prevent it from going bankrupt so they might not have been entirely willing from the start. The latter had just lost some pretty large contracts to competitors and was at risk of going bust entirely which was an unacceptable vendor risk to the DoD. The DoD didn't have the money to prop it up directly so instead might have used a third party.

limpbizkitfan 2y ago

If Boeing’s product was something less necessary, and held in lower esteem, like military aircraft, a lot of these QA issues (and clear lack of ethics) would fall by the wayside in terms of press coverage. Boeing is not the only company that has wrung itself dry with goals of growth-over-growth in terms of stock dividends. Planes require so much validation and Boeing aircraft were held in very high esteem, but these attributes are just cows to milk in the eyes of the “smartest” investor. Boeing is the canary, the first to erode, because they set high standards for themselves and have to meet stringent regulatory standards. I won’t be at all surprised when other companies with less important products begin to display fraying edges.

kunai 2y ago
What? How exactly are military aircraft "held in low esteem?" If anything, it's the exact opposite.
- limpbizkitfan 2y ago
  The initial batches of F-35 rusted to pieces in 3 months of service. The Sikorsky MH-53E has a kapton defect and has been dropping out of the sky for decades. Commercial aircraft aren’t filled with well paid people who signed a waiver saying they’re OK with the risk of dying. It’s a completely different space. A fighter pilot crashing isn’t anything compared with a plane going down with a hundred souls aboard
  - dragonwriter 2y ago
    > Commercial aircraft aren’t filled with well paid people who signed a waiver saying they’re OK with the risk of dying. Neither are military aircraft (especially ones that carry more than just a pilot and navigator/RIO), generally, unless “well-paid” is defined broadly enough to be equivalent to just “paid”.

dataflow 2y ago

This isn't a few random people, it's the executives at the top...

watwut 2y ago

Yes, change of few decision makers on top in charge of hiring or money or anything similar will change the culture no matter how robust it was. Culture is not magic, it is determined from top.

banish-m4 2y ago

Incorrect conflation between hierarchal politics and amorphous culture. The management of Boeing was essentially replaced during the merger. It's not the "strength" of Boeing's culture that matters, but the quality of its work.