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Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

nytimes.com

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Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#11

Post by lisper »

bad_alloc wrote: post #8
_s wrote: post #2

Profit before people / product / planet. It’s been the downfall of many companies, and in this case, has resulted in the unnecessary death of many individuals. Boeing is currently in the spotlight, but there are so many other companies - ranging from pharma to agriculture to tech, that also adhere to the above mantra and have been the cause of much death and destruction. You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies…

> You can’t blame individuals You can and you have to. Corporations are structuredi nsuch a way that there is always somebody who is in charge of a certain project or descision. Of course this might be hidden. in order to fight "Profit before people / product / planet", these individuals need to be punished. It cannot be allowed that blame diffuses in a corporation. Otherwise there will be no change.

That's actually not true. If the punishment is severe enough then it can be made to diffuse all the way back to the shareholders in a way that they will notice, and that will eventually bring about change.

The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility so that granny can buy blue chip stocks to fund her retirement without having to actually pay attention to the bothersome details of corporate governance. Management is doing exactly what it was hired to do: maximize granny's ROI by any means necessary.

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#12

Post by lisper »

brookside wrote: post #3

Boeing South Carolina teammates are producing the highest levels of quality in our history,” Kevin McAllister, Boeing’s head of commercial airplanes, said in a statement. “I am proud of our teams’ exceptional commitment to quality and stand behind the work they do each and every day. Whoever is sitting down to write Boeing's PR response quotes needs to be fired, along with whichever c-suite exec is approving them. It…

> It's not acceptable to totally ignore actual safely issues being brought to light and respond universally with panglossian emptiness.

Not only is it acceptable, it's effective. Until a 787 actually crashes and provides unambiguous evidence that the whistleblowers are telling the truth, it's a he-said-she-said situation.

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#13

Post by Scoundreller »

lisper wrote: post #11
bad_alloc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t blame individuals You can and you have to. Corporations are structuredi nsuch a way that there is always somebody who is in charge of a certain project or descision. Of course this might be hidden. in order to fight "Profit before people / product / planet", these individuals need to be punished. It cannot be allowed that blame diffuses in a corporation. Otherwise there will be no change.

That's actually not true. If the punishment is severe enough then it can be made to diffuse all the way back to the shareholders in a way that they will notice, and that will eventually bring about change. The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility so that granny can buy blue chip stocks to fund her retirement without having to actually pay attention to the bothersome details of corpor…

> The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility

Do we? Shareholders take the hit when the corporation negotiates a fine instead of punishing the decision-makers responsible directly.

How much did dieselgate cost VW shareholders? How much did it impact the people that made the decisions?

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#14

Post by bufordtwain »

brookside wrote: post #3

Boeing South Carolina teammates are producing the highest levels of quality in our history,” Kevin McAllister, Boeing’s head of commercial airplanes, said in a statement. “I am proud of our teams’ exceptional commitment to quality and stand behind the work they do each and every day. Whoever is sitting down to write Boeing's PR response quotes needs to be fired, along with whichever c-suite exec is approving them. It…

Although it seems to be the same playbook as used by Trump - which so far has worked well for him. Deny deny deny and say you're the very best.

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#15

Post by kikoreis »

rayiner wrote: post #7
blck wrote: post #4

I'm reminded of the comment linked here on reddit from a former Boeing employee employed 2008-2009 (allegedly). >To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time bombs. I talked to many engineers who had worked on that program to know just how…

Is this some new thing making rounds on the internet? Airplanes account for 5% of all CO2 emissions, and only a fraction of that is individuals flying. The average American would have to take a dozen New York-Tokyo flights per year to even double their carbon footprint. I assume you’ve addressed more important sources of carbon emissions, such as moving to a state that doesn’t require heating in the winter or AC in t…

This is off topic but it was startling to me when I looked at CO2 stats that there was so little air travel and so much energy generation and heating. I think we have just stumbled upon the real reason we haven't fully grokked climate change yet.. the problem is much simpler and more brutal than most of us perceive.

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#16

Post by vondur »

bufordtwain wrote: post #14
brookside wrote: post #3

Boeing South Carolina teammates are producing the highest levels of quality in our history,” Kevin McAllister, Boeing’s head of commercial airplanes, said in a statement. “I am proud of our teams’ exceptional commitment to quality and stand behind the work they do each and every day. Whoever is sitting down to write Boeing's PR response quotes needs to be fired, along with whichever c-suite exec is approving them. It…

Although it seems to be the same playbook as used by Trump - which so far has worked well for him. Deny deny deny and say you're the very best.

Keep your politics to yourself, it has nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#17

Post by btrettel »

_s wrote: post #2

Profit before people / product / planet. It’s been the downfall of many companies, and in this case, has resulted in the unnecessary death of many individuals. Boeing is currently in the spotlight, but there are so many other companies - ranging from pharma to agriculture to tech, that also adhere to the above mantra and have been the cause of much death and destruction. You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies…

> You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies here. The system they operate in requires them to report quarterly; with a priority on short term performance over a longer term outlook (it exists, but not overtly so). When you don’t meet those short term goals, both individuals (employee reviews, getting laid off etc) and the company (value on the public or private market) suffers.

The question of responsibility differs from what one should expect. I think it's perfectly fine to blame the individuals and companies here. "I was just following incentives" is becoming the new Nuremberg defense.

Of course, to change what happens in reality most of the time, it's not enough to blame people; you need to change the incentives.

Related: http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-inc...

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#18

Post by gameswithgo »

_s wrote: post #2

Profit before people / product / planet. It’s been the downfall of many companies, and in this case, has resulted in the unnecessary death of many individuals. Boeing is currently in the spotlight, but there are so many other companies - ranging from pharma to agriculture to tech, that also adhere to the above mantra and have been the cause of much death and destruction. You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies…

the most rapid progress we ever had on earth was when bell labs was a monopoly and had no competitive environment at all

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#19

Post by [deleted] »

vondur wrote: post #16
bufordtwain wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although it seems to be the same playbook as used by Trump - which so far has worked well for him. Deny deny deny and say you're the very best.

Keep your politics to yourself, it has nothing to do with the topic being discussed.

[deleted]

Re: Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

#20

Post by CamperBob2 »

lisper wrote: post #11
bad_alloc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t blame individuals You can and you have to. Corporations are structuredi nsuch a way that there is always somebody who is in charge of a certain project or descision. Of course this might be hidden. in order to fight "Profit before people / product / planet", these individuals need to be punished. It cannot be allowed that blame diffuses in a corporation. Otherwise there will be no change.

That's actually not true. If the punishment is severe enough then it can be made to diffuse all the way back to the shareholders in a way that they will notice, and that will eventually bring about change. The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility so that granny can buy blue chip stocks to fund her retirement without having to actually pay attention to the bothersome details of corpor…

How do you propose to punish shareholders?

Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Jail them? Good luck with that.

What else can/should be done to them, in your opinion?

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