Boeing’s #1 problem is not that they lack a culture of accountability.
It’s that they *hate unions* and *hate criticism.* So many of Boeing's major actions in the last 20, even 30 years have had to do with their attempts to break unions and escape political pressure in Washington State. The payoff is pressing workers without enough training, denigrating and overruling the work of union employees, and outsourcing work to avoid increasing union employment. This has cost them $10s of billions.
There's an inherent tension here.
The subcontractor's business plan is not the same as the actual plan. As with the actual plan, the main plan of the subcontractor is to divert money from execution of the actual plan.
Airline plan is "operate aircraft affordably safe enough to sell tickets," different from Boeing plan "affordably safe enough to sell airplanes.).
Everything but money is secondary. Financiers prioritize
money above all and aviation is financialized.
Better articulated, more deeply explored.
Gift link.
(I've a person close to me who took early retirement as a senior avionics software engineer because of the growing financial stink of Boeing. It's been a horrible process to watch.)
Or as one says of IT security, "we're only as safe as the least qualified user."
I mean, this is true of every industry and people die because of it. Why should aerospace be any different?
I think you've hit the nail on the head, and more: any culture, corporate or other, which finds criticism to be anathemic will never and *can* never hold itself responsible for any of its failings, and will always resist change outright due to the fact that making a willing and positive change means admitting a lack of perfection.
The result hasn't just been a loss of billions, but a gradual and continual onset of stagnation and decay within Boeing, once one of the most trusted names in aeronautics.
So too Boeing's loathing of unions, because of one simple axiom:
Unions effect change.
And they effect change in part through exposing the weak links, the abuse, the inconsistencies and inefficiencies in the corporate structure as seen through the lens of workers' rights.
Criticism, in other words. Healthy stuff, like listening to your doctor when they say to cut back on a chain-smoking habit.
But some folks take that as an attack...
@glennf Hey, remember that time when Boeing got an $8.7B tax break from the state, then started moving non-Machinists union jobs out of state anyway?
I hope we start charging them extra to stay here.
@glennf Yep. I think it was originally $10B, but they couldn’t cash in that other $1.3B because of the WTO decision.
Anyway, we know what they are now. We don’t need to be the ones to bail them out of this one.
@glennf This should have been a huge public scandal 20 years ago, but Boeing got it mostly swept up.
@glennf You can be a sales company or you can be an engineering company. You cannot be both and you cannot mix the two approaches.
If you're a sales company, you go out of business because you can't innovate and people will figure out that you constantly lie to them.
If you're an engineering company, got out of business because you fail to win contracts because a sales company will undersell you. Only when you're the sole source or in tight, fussy, affluent markets can you hope to prosper.
@glennf It's hard to avoid the feeling that something, somewhere, is structurally wrong.
(With Boeing, certainly, but not just Boeing. Boeing is at least the classic "You can have success, or you can have control; you cannot have both. Don't promote people who want control.")
@glennf a brilliant but terrifying and unnecessary lesson in how hating criticism too much only refines it more and more into the level of criticism that can basically destroy you or your company.
id rather sit in the cargo section with a heavy coat and an oxygen cylinder than fly on a boeing.
@glennf And I just remembered this 21 year old post I had bookmarked years ago: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=213075
"The Downfall of a Great American Airplane Company - An Insider's Perspective"
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