4 ms·

Boeing culture has been going down for quite some time. The pivotal point to me was, when Airbus launched the A380, Boeing thought they would have an easy home

Boeing culture has been going down for quite some time. The pivotal point to me was, when Airbus launched the A380, Boeing thought they would have an easy home run with the Dreamliner, Airbus would be doomed as competition as no one wants the A380, Boeing slacked off, and then Airbus came back, listened to the customers, changed the A350 to a new plane and had a runaway success (on top of the bread and butter neos).

lotsofpulp 2y ago
The pivotal point was when they physically moved the leaders away from the people that engineer and build the planes, ensuring the creation of a management class of employees who only cared about squeezing the working class of employees.
- mmaunder 2y ago
  I think this antipattern kills many engineering businesses.
  - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    The abstraction that is created to isolate against empathy, also isolates against functionality and longterm reality. Who knew.. certainly not the process designers..
    - mmooss 2y ago
      I haven't seen evidence, or heard people say, that engineers have more empathy. Usually the stereotype, fair or not, is the reverse. Many of the more reviled SV CEOs are engineers; many engineers openly reject humanism like it's the latest 'smart' ideological movement.
  - albrewer 2y ago
    Early in my career as a brand new baby mechanical design engineer, I would have absolutely made some huge mistakes were I not able to pick up my drawings and ask a machinist with 30 years of experience if I was being an idiot or not. I learned just as much from the welders and machinists as I did from my boss.
- kylecordes 2y ago
  I remember when that happened, many people publicly predicted it would lead to the situation seen today.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    When was that? If you remember, I'd love to see who predicted what.
    - tivert 2y ago
      I just did some Googling, and apparently they've moved their headquarters several times: 2001: Seattle to Chicago: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/on-this-day-boeing-moves-corporate-headquarters-to-chicago-in-2001/827067193/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/on-this-day-boeing-moves-co... 2022: Chicago to Washington, DC area: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-reportedly-moving-headquarters-to-virginia/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein... 2024: Back to Seattle (maybe just the CEO and not the whole office): https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/new-boeing-ceo-seeks-restore-trust-stay-close-production-2024-08-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/new-boein...
- jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  Which is part of what is so troubling about tech today, that it's ranks are filled with managers who don't build anything. His podcast role is Chief Cynic but man I love listening to Ed Zitron's Better Offline. What I'm about to link is an extremely hard & direct a polemic, especially the second about the specific people at the largest companies, but damn. It was so enervating to hear. The Shareholder Supremacy episode ties it all to Jack Welsh making everything awful forever everywhere, managing by number-goes-up. And then How Shareholders Are Destroying the Tech Industry is such a real shared anger against specific leaders, that undercuts how bad & ineffective & midling this age is, being lead by people with so little inspiration & touch with their products. https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/the-shareholder-supremacy https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/the-shareholder-suprema... https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/how-shareholders-are-destroying-the-tech-industry https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/how-shareholders-are-de... This podcast series is definitely on my world treasures list, as a how-it-really-is "histories of today" account. Also, the Daily Show keeps having some real bangers... (Covering the media coverage of McDonalds vs Enemy Within was a deep cut.) It's cathartic as hell and often remarkably informative (but also sometimes less so too).
  - glenneroo 2y ago
    If you prefer to read, there is also the long-form post of Shareholder Supremacy which is IMO excellent: https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/
josefrichter 2y ago
As a side note, I am still fascinated that Airbus is relatively well run and successful company, even though it's EU based, cross-border, with all the overregulation, bureaucracy and obstacles that come with that.
- dtquad 2y ago
  >it's EU based, cross-border, with all the overregulation, bureaucracy and obstacles that come with that That is because one of those things is not true. It's not very cross-border. The vast majority of Airbus R&D and manufacturing happens in Toulouse and Hamburg with each city focusing on specific plane models. Airbus is incredibly centralized and has been able to take advantage of that to deeply integrate R&D and manufacturing.
  - KingOfCoders 2y ago
    "That is because one of those things is not true." I will keep that in mind when seeing an Airbus Beluga again when in Hamburg.
    - eqvinox 2y ago
      All airplane manufacturers have giant supply chains spanning countries… Airbus just considers some of them maybe a bit more "integrated". I.e. the Spanish wing-skin manufacturing unit could just be a separate company. btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter [ed. wrong link]
      - piva00 2y ago
        I feel the main difference is that Boeing's management post McDonnell merge decided to consider their suppliers as simple vendors, spinning off Spirit, and taking away their direct oversight using supply contracts as a backstop. Airbus does more hands-on oversight of their suppliers, they have staff to check their work, is all part of an integrated QA system instead of the hands-off outsourcing approach Boeing took. At least that's what I understand from a very layman view of their processes, would love to be corrected if I'm wrong.
jmyeet 2y ago
> when Airbus launched the A380, Boeing thought they would have an easy home run with the Dreamliner, This is ahistorical. When Airbus announced the A380, Boeing tried to respond with their own version, the 747X [1]. The 747 is arguably the most successful aviation platform in history and was hugely profitable for Boeing for 40+ years. But the industry changed to wide-body 2 engine planes (eg 777, 787, A350) because they're more economical to run and engines have become so reliable that they'll generally last the entire service life of the plane. The A380 needs 4 engines. The 747X would've too. Even with higher passenger count, running 4 engines instead of 2 is a huge economy issue. Basically you needed to fill ~550 seats to make a profit and not many routes could support that. It works great for the ME3 airlines and arguably a couple of Asian carriers (eg Sinapore Airlines) but not really anybody else and certainly not US airlines. A way more pivotal moment was the A319neo. This was a complete surprise to Boeing and represented an existential threat to Boeing. As you may already know, commercial pilots are generally certified for a single type rating at a time. They can train and certify for another type rating but generally speaking commercial pilots won't switch all the time between, say, a 787 and an A350 or even a 787 and a 737. So airlines like Southwest keep costs low by maintaining a single type rating fleet, being the 737, an airline originally designed 50+ years. So that's both a blessing and a curse for Boeing. The curse being they lose that lock-in if they design a new cockpit. Airbus didn't have that problem. But the A319neo was so efficient and coule potentially suit US airlines that Boeing ahd to respond and make the 737 more efficient, which of course led to the whole MCAS debacle. That wasn't the first time Boeing had issues either. Back in the 90s the 737NG had an issue (that caused crashes) with the 737 rudder getting stuck in flight. That took years to resolve. There were issues for Boeing as a company with the 787. That's when Boeing tried to savagely cut costs with layers of subcontractors and it was a disaster that delayed delivery by years. That's continued with the 737MAX issues like the door panels not being bolted in. [1]: https://simpleflying.com/boeing-747x/ https://simpleflying.com/boeing-747x/
- mmooss 2y ago
  Perhaps a dumb question in this context, but what made the A319neo so efficient? What was the technological innovation?
karmakaze 2y ago
The culture decline was largely from the merger with McDonnell Douglas[0]. Before that Boeing had a high engineering culture all the way up to leadership. When management of a tech company is decoupled from engineering, there are short-term wins and long-term losses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#Merger_with_McDonnell_Douglas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#Merger_with_McDonnell_D...

lotsofpulp 2y ago

The pivotal point was when they physically moved the leaders away from the people that engineer and build the planes, ensuring the creation of a management class of employees who only cared about squeezing the working class of employees.

mmaunder 2y ago
I think this antipattern kills many engineering businesses.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  The abstraction that is created to isolate against empathy, also isolates against functionality and longterm reality. Who knew.. certainly not the process designers..
  - mmooss 2y ago
    I haven't seen evidence, or heard people say, that engineers have more empathy. Usually the stereotype, fair or not, is the reverse. Many of the more reviled SV CEOs are engineers; many engineers openly reject humanism like it's the latest 'smart' ideological movement.
- albrewer 2y ago
  Early in my career as a brand new baby mechanical design engineer, I would have absolutely made some huge mistakes were I not able to pick up my drawings and ask a machinist with 30 years of experience if I was being an idiot or not. I learned just as much from the welders and machinists as I did from my boss.
kylecordes 2y ago
I remember when that happened, many people publicly predicted it would lead to the situation seen today.
- mmooss 2y ago
  When was that? If you remember, I'd love to see who predicted what.
  - tivert 2y ago
    I just did some Googling, and apparently they've moved their headquarters several times: 2001: Seattle to Chicago: https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/on-this-day-boeing-moves-corporate-headquarters-to-chicago-in-2001/827067193/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/on-this-day-boeing-moves-co... 2022: Chicago to Washington, DC area: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-reportedly-moving-headquarters-to-virginia/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boein... 2024: Back to Seattle (maybe just the CEO and not the whole office): https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/new-boeing-ceo-seeks-restore-trust-stay-close-production-2024-08-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/new-boein...
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Which is part of what is so troubling about tech today, that it's ranks are filled with managers who don't build anything. His podcast role is Chief Cynic but man I love listening to Ed Zitron's Better Offline. What I'm about to link is an extremely hard & direct a polemic, especially the second about the specific people at the largest companies, but damn. It was so enervating to hear. The Shareholder Supremacy episode ties it all to Jack Welsh making everything awful forever everywhere, managing by number-goes-up. And then How Shareholders Are Destroying the Tech Industry is such a real shared anger against specific leaders, that undercuts how bad & ineffective & midling this age is, being lead by people with so little inspiration & touch with their products. https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/the-shareholder-supremacy https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/the-shareholder-suprema... https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/how-shareholders-are-destroying-the-tech-industry https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/how-shareholders-are-de... This podcast series is definitely on my world treasures list, as a how-it-really-is "histories of today" account. Also, the Daily Show keeps having some real bangers... (Covering the media coverage of McDonalds vs Enemy Within was a deep cut.) It's cathartic as hell and often remarkably informative (but also sometimes less so too).
- glenneroo 2y ago
  If you prefer to read, there is also the long-form post of Shareholder Supremacy which is IMO excellent: https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/tss/

josefrichter 2y ago

As a side note, I am still fascinated that Airbus is relatively well run and successful company, even though it's EU based, cross-border, with all the overregulation, bureaucracy and obstacles that come with that.

dtquad 2y ago
>it's EU based, cross-border, with all the overregulation, bureaucracy and obstacles that come with that That is because one of those things is not true. It's not very cross-border. The vast majority of Airbus R&D and manufacturing happens in Toulouse and Hamburg with each city focusing on specific plane models. Airbus is incredibly centralized and has been able to take advantage of that to deeply integrate R&D and manufacturing.
- KingOfCoders 2y ago
  "That is because one of those things is not true." I will keep that in mind when seeing an Airbus Beluga again when in Hamburg.
  - eqvinox 2y ago
    All airplane manufacturers have giant supply chains spanning countries… Airbus just considers some of them maybe a bit more "integrated". I.e. the Spanish wing-skin manufacturing unit could just be a separate company. btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter [ed. wrong link]
    - piva00 2y ago
      I feel the main difference is that Boeing's management post McDonnell merge decided to consider their suppliers as simple vendors, spinning off Spirit, and taking away their direct oversight using supply contracts as a backstop. Airbus does more hands-on oversight of their suppliers, they have staff to check their work, is all part of an integrated QA system instead of the hands-off outsourcing approach Boeing took. At least that's what I understand from a very layman view of their processes, would love to be corrected if I'm wrong.

jmyeet 2y ago

> when Airbus launched the A380, Boeing thought they would have an easy home run with the Dreamliner, This is ahistorical. When Airbus announced the A380, Boeing tried to respond with their own version, the 747X [1]. The 747 is arguably the most successful aviation platform in history and was hugely profitable for Boeing for 40+ years. But the industry changed to wide-body 2 engine planes (eg 777, 787, A350) because they're more economical to run and engines have become so reliable that they'll generally last the entire service life of the plane. The A380 needs 4 engines. The 747X would've too. Even with higher passenger count, running 4 engines instead of 2 is a huge economy issue. Basically you needed to fill ~550 seats to make a profit and not many routes could support that. It works great for the ME3 airlines and arguably a couple of Asian carriers (eg Sinapore Airlines) but not really anybody else and certainly not US airlines. A way more pivotal moment was the A319neo. This was a complete surprise to Boeing and represented an existential threat to Boeing. As you may already know, commercial pilots are generally certified for a single type rating at a time. They can train and certify for another type rating but generally speaking commercial pilots won't switch all the time between, say, a 787 and an A350 or even a 787 and a 737. So airlines like Southwest keep costs low by maintaining a single type rating fleet, being the 737, an airline originally designed 50+ years. So that's both a blessing and a curse for Boeing. The curse being they lose that lock-in if they design a new cockpit. Airbus didn't have that problem. But the A319neo was so efficient and coule potentially suit US airlines that Boeing ahd to respond and make the 737 more efficient, which of course led to the whole MCAS debacle. That wasn't the first time Boeing had issues either. Back in the 90s the 737NG had an issue (that caused crashes) with the 737 rudder getting stuck in flight. That took years to resolve. There were issues for Boeing as a company with the 787. That's when Boeing tried to savagely cut costs with layers of subcontractors and it was a disaster that delayed delivery by years. That's continued with the 737MAX issues like the door panels not being bolted in. [1]: https://simpleflying.com/boeing-747x/ https://simpleflying.com/boeing-747x/

mmooss 2y ago
Perhaps a dumb question in this context, but what made the A319neo so efficient? What was the technological innovation?

karmakaze 2y ago

The culture decline was largely from the merger with McDonnell Douglas[0]. Before that Boeing had a high engineering culture all the way up to leadership. When management of a tech company is decoupled from engineering, there are short-term wins and long-term losses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#Merger_with_McDonnell_Douglas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#Merger_with_McDonnell_D...