Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
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Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#2Two things really struck me in this article. The first was the graph of sales over time. The current boom in sales is the biggest and longest - only the boom from 1985 to the mid-90s comes close in duration. All the other booms seem to have ended in a sharp drop in sales.
The second is the continuing trend - in both private industry and government - to atomise organisations by outsourcing important work. The immediate, formal needs of the organisation will be met by the contractual requirements but informal communications and long term development of people and institutional knowledge aren't paid for and won't happen.
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#3Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#4Two things really struck me in this article. The first was the graph of sales over time. The current boom in sales is the biggest and longest - only the boom from 1985 to the mid-90s comes close in duration. All the other booms seem to have ended in a sharp drop in sales. The second is the continuing trend - in both private industry and government - to atomise organisations by outsourcing important work. The immediat…
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#5I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly.
It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead they've spent a lot of it! Let's downsize, outsource, and make our own divisions pay for IT, we'll see whether we're successful by measuring the IT department's profit next quarter." Inevitably, that department makes more money under that regime, but the company is worse at flying people from place to place.
If you're a hardware company, the software should be free. The support should be effective. You should be hosting training events at nice facilities with free pizza because people who know how to use your hardware will buy more of it. If I have to pay for your software, I'm going to be pressured to buy the Light version instead of Enterprise, and I'm going to pay for only one training class and not learn about your next iteration, and you will sell less hardware.
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#6I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…
You have to keep in mind for these companies keeping the customer happy is not the intent. It's merely a coincidental side effect of any potential profit seeking they do.
The only people they really care about and are accountable to are the shareholders and investors. And they want infinite profit at the sake of everything else. If you want to solve this problem then you need to remove them from the equation entirely because given enough time they will run a company into the ground and run away with the proceeds.
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#7I'm sorry, but what does squeezing jobs have to do with:
1. Drive MCAS with only one AOA sensor.
2. Don't tell MCAS to look for (or even think about) bad AOA data or AOA disagreements.
3. Equip airplane with two AOA sensors as usual, but make the AOA disagree warning light a "value added option" that customers have to pay extra for.
4. Don't actually bother to tell pilots that they don't have AOA disagree warning lights.
5. Don't bother to tell pilots that MCAS exists at all.
6. Don't test MCAS subsystem to see what it actually does with bad AOA data.
7. Give MCAS a ridiculous amount of control authority, operating cumulatively over repeated applications to exceed what the pilot can manually override.
8. Change how the trib stab switch has been wired since 1966 and not tell pilots.
How any engineering team let this through is unfathomable. Don't blame the MBAs or the unions. Didn't these guys get the lecture about the Hyatt?
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#8I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…
You have to keep in mind for these companies keeping the customer happy is not the intent. It's merely a coincidental side effect of any potential profit seeking they do. The only people they really care about and are accountable to are the shareholders and investors. And they want infinite profit at the sake of everything else. If you want to solve this problem then you need to remove them from the equation entirely…
All publicity traded companies are the same. The only distinction is the means they use to make money at first. Making money is the only goal, and shareholders demand growth quarter over quarter. This is why the fate of successful public companies is to become broader in scope while leveraging anti-competitive practices. The possible end results are either that the company is killed off, or that it effectively becomes the government or otherwise forces its host country into in oligarchy.
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#9I am totally ready to see the last of the Boeing threads on HN. It's like Groundhog Day.
Re: Boeing push to make training profitable may have left 737 Max pilots unprepared
#10I hate the "everything must be a profit center" MBA attitude. Boeing is a profitable company because they make machines that fly people from place to place safely and efficiently. Part of that is having training, support, service, replacement parts, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, and all the other things required to make things fly. It's easy to sit in a conference room and say "gee, IT hasn't made any money, instead…
You have to keep in mind for these companies keeping the customer happy is not the intent. It's merely a coincidental side effect of any potential profit seeking they do. The only people they really care about and are accountable to are the shareholders and investors. And they want infinite profit at the sake of everything else. If you want to solve this problem then you need to remove them from the equation entirely…
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