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Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

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Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#311

Post by drtgh »

missedthecue wrote: post #305
drtgh wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think would not be exactly political. The part where the plutocracy benefits the interests of a few pockets would certainly be political, but by other part, the major aircraft manufacturers in the EU and the UE, build civil aircraft as well as military ones. As I understand it, to torpedo these companies by dumping prices would be to indirectly torpedo the EU's and the UE's defense aircraft production. A cost based…

Why do you assume out of hand they would be low quality? We see in other industries, such as the Chinese military industry, that they are capable of producing a lot of high quality air frames. Their stealth J-20 has never had an accident in the 13 years it's been flying and they are building 120 per year, and flying them tens of thousands of hours per year. You can look at other models. Their Xian Y-20 freighter has…

The military ones are Russian engineering assisted, iirc. The ones we should look at for airlines would be the Comac C919 ( and progressively C929 and C939).

https://theaircurrent.com/china/china-eastern-comac-c919-ret...

> Launch airline China Eastern’s tentative February 28 entry-into-service date never materialized [..]

> After regularly operating as part of its route proving, the aircraft appeared to change tempo on February 2. The aircraft flew a half dozen more short flights before February 27 then sat for nearly a month before being ferried from Hongqiao to nearby Pudong on March 23 when it was last seen. There’s been no definitive explanation for the jet’s return to the manufacturer.

Apparently they didn't copied well the stolen designs from American and European manufacturers[1] or there was a quality issue with the delivered aircraft. I think the Chinese government wants EU approval to use European citizens as alpha-testers.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/china-eas...

> China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) said on Thursday it will buy another 100 C919 airplanes in a deal worth $10 billion at list prices, in what would be the largest ever order for the jet made by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC).

> The state-owned carrier said it had received a "substantial discount" for the deal and that the planes will be delivered in batches from 2024 to 2031. The list price for the C919 is $99 million but aircraft can be sold at discounts of up to 50%, especially for new models.

50% of the EU and the UE aircraft prices. It should be expected prices dumping, the same that happened when Hawuei and ZTE was subsidizing antennas and selling equipment at lower prices than manufacturing costs in the European Union.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919#US_espionage_allega...

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#312

Post by naasking »

ks1723 wrote: post #310
naasking wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you basically make the same point as wanted to make: you can’t just frame it as an engineering problem, it involves accountants and bosses. I disagree that I was making this point. I said it currently involves accountants and bosses, and I'm saying it doesn't have to because you can make it an engineering problem. The accountants and bosses don't have any unique skills or insight here that aren't in principle also…

Ok, then I misunderstood, and we can only agree to disagree. I think there need to be people caring about organizational stuff which you cannot fully formulate as engineering problem: setting deadlines, putting teams together, determining team leads, determining how much budget is spent on which branch or discipline or even which part development. In addition, even more technical problems like calculating and compari…

> I think there need to be people caring about organizational stuff which you cannot fully formulate as engineering problem: setting deadlines, putting teams together, determining team leads, determining how much budget is spent on which branch or discipline or even which part development.

These are mostly hacks to get around the fact that the engineers haven't been given enough information. If you just say, "we need product X that can be produced at cost Y/unit and we need to start production by date Z", then this is a satisfiability problem that the right set of engineers can evaluate as possible or not possible. It's fine to assign a team lead with the requisite experience and authority to pull in the engineers, equipment and data they need to answer this question, but then you get out of the way.

Answering this question involves laying out a semi-detailed plan for how to achieve the goal. If it turns out to not be possible within the given constraints, then you at least have that plan to inform you where the expected cost or time overruns are (or the unknowns/uncertainty), and whether that means you have to revise the expected selling price, deadline or you can compromise on the scope to achieve the desired selling price.

I will agree that some engineers and programmers really don't care about this stuff, but I'd argue it's because it's typically not part of their job, and sometimes because worrying about costs and schedules is not an "interesting problem". But it is an interesting problem if you frame it as set of optimization and satisfiability problems.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#313

Post by ethbr1 »

webreac wrote: post #265
ethbr1 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> According to a European Parliament report, published in 2001, America's National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted faxes and phone calls between Airbus, Saudi Arabian Airlines and the Saudi government in early 1994. The NSA found that Airbus agents were offering bribes to a Saudi official to secure a lion's share for Airbus in modernising Saudi Arabian Airlines' fleet. The planes were in a $6 billion deal that Edo…

Another way of presenting the same facts is that Airbus has done business with a country where corruption and bribes are the norm. The U.S. intercepted communications and used them to blackmail buyers so that they chose Boeing instead of the best airplanes.

Exactly. It's fair to say that at the level of national champion industries and state-to-state deals, countries' intelligence organizations are always involved.

Maybe they're doing defense (discovering bribes swaying the bid to another country, or monitoring their own country's bribes) or offense (stealing competitor bid data and specifications), but they're not idle.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#314

Post by AdrianB1 »

kelnos wrote: post #218
AdrianB1 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't safe to keep operating the same airplanes for decades. Me, crying while flying a 50 year old Cessna 172. Oh, luckily you are wrong this time: most planes at top airlines are replaced with more competitive ones, not because they depleted the airframe. The rest is replaceable - airplanes replace engines more often than some people change their socks and everything else is either regularly checked or replaced…

Airframe life is rated in hours of flight, not in years. So your 50 year old Cessna might still have plenty of hours left in it; I bet planes like that aren't in the air as much as commercial airliners. Also note that the GP pointed out that it depends on what the plane is made out of, so older construction from 50 years ago can have more longevity in a way that more recently-built planes will not.

I responded to someone who said it is not safe to fly airplanes for decades. I don't think they meant "decades equivalent of flight hours", but the decades since manufacturing date.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#315

Post by euroderf »

daedrdev wrote: post #63

One of the big signs of Boeings decline is that they don't make much of their planes directly, instead relying on large subcontractors to assemble most pieces of a plane and install the pieces. This was all done to reduce costs by squeezing suppliers, yet when the suppliers only work for Boeing, my theory is that eventually the cost cutting started to hit engineering and quality control. Additionally, it hilarious th…

> MAX was made to save money and avoid a new airframe, yet this decision is probably one of the most costly moves they have ever made.

Punitive damages, take a bow.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#316

Post by euroderf »

David_FF wrote: post #267

1997 was 27 years ago This article is not compelling to me at all They're seriously trying to blame the problems of Boeing on a merger from nearly 3 decades ago. The culture of the company surely should have evolved radically over 3 decades At some point, the past is the past

Other comments make the point that in the airframe industry, development and production timeframes are looong.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#317

Post by euroderf »

dinero_rojo wrote: post #45
kazen44 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why 1919 specifically? in my opinion, it seeems to have been enormously on the rise since the end of world war 2 and especially after the end of the cold war.

Fairly certain he’s referring to Dodge v. Ford Motor Company, where it was established that a company needs to operate in the best interests of shareholders above all else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.?wprov=...

Also IIRC there was a case before the Supreme Court where the dispute was whether shareholder value was the sole & supreme goal, or there could be other factors involved from other stakeholders (such as workers, the community, ...).

The Supremes ruled for shareholder value.

However I forget details of ths case. If anyone here happens to know what case I am referring to, please chime in.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#318

Post by dragonwriter »

euroderf wrote: post #317
dinero_rojo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fairly certain he’s referring to Dodge v. Ford Motor Company, where it was established that a company needs to operate in the best interests of shareholders above all else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.?wprov=...

Also IIRC there was a case before the Supreme Court where the dispute was whether shareholder value was the sole & supreme goal, or there could be other factors involved from other stakeholders (such as workers, the community, ...). The Supremes ruled for shareholder value. However I forget details of ths case. If anyone here happens to know what case I am referring to, please chime in.

You are probably thinking of the case described in GP, which is the decision of the Michigan Supreme Court on this issue.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#319

Post by idiotsecant »

naasking wrote: post #294
idiotsecant wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the choice between cost optimized and safe, fast, cool, etc very few engineers are going to go for cost savings. If there's no bean counters in charge and no market cnstraints its obvious that the product is going to be really good and really expensive.

> If there's [...] no market cnstraints its obvious that the product is going to be really good and really expensive. Well sure, you literally just removed the cost optimization variable. SpaceX vs. NASA is a clear example demonstrating that engineers can do this sort of optimization when it's given to them as a constraint. NASA's rocket designs were all custom, single-use, often down to the bolts because the budget…

Spacex also had the very small advantage of all the basic science being done for them for free. The constraint in the NASA golden years wasn't getting it done cheaply, it was getting it done at all.

Re: Did a 1997 merger ruin Boeing?

#320

Post by p_l »

Regarding costs of switching to different aircraft model - the type ratings themselves might not be that expensive, similarly parts and other preparations when looked in isolation.

Which is fine for privately-owned company, but not for publicly traded company that is going to take a pounding for the expenses over multiple quarters.

And similarly Boeing wanted to have a happy path over designing and certifying a completely new plane, which is frankly what they should have done - the 737 design could not be enhanced further without at least major recertification part (for example, going full fly by wire).

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