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Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

seattletimes.com

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Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#21

Post by bryanlarsen »

bobthepanda wrote: post #14
brianwawok wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so little competition, and it would be so expensive to spin something up… I could see it sputtering along for many years. Who can disrupt this? Need space X level money and research, and not sure the profit potential is as high.

It is really hard. China, Russia and Japan have tried state sponsored schemes without success. Bombardier of Canada had to throw in the towel, and Embraer of Brazil almost did. Part of the problem is also that airlines have been very good at squeezing the duopoly while demanding ever more. The competition, if it manages to get a plane in the air, usually isn’t as fuel efficient and so the airlines have mostly not bee…

Russia and Japan failed, but it's far too early to call COMAC from China a failure.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#22

Post by sonicanatidae »

varjag wrote: post #10
tr_user wrote: post #6

Steps in the right direction, let's get rid of more engineers and replace them with more MBAs. > However, a person familiar with the decision and who asked not to be identified commenting on sensitive personnel decisions, confirmed that Clark’s leaving was not voluntary. > Clark is an engineer. His successor Ringgold has business degrees. However she began her aviation career performing avionics systems maintenance a…

There are bad engineers too.

Absolutely, but systemically, that's not been their problem. Too many MBAs are making decisions without Engineering involvement. I know because my industry works the exact same way le rage

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#23

Post by legitster »

mikece wrote: post #3

A friend of mine who used to work for Boeing said the downward trend started when they acquired McDonnell Douglas and the MD bean counters took over a lot of top positions at Boeing, displacing engineers. After that cost-cutting became more of an obsession than building awesome aircraft. Makes me wonder how Boeing can avoid descending into bankruptcy at this point with multiple major projects having significant issue…

Well, the MD acquisition didn't happen in a vacuum. At the time Airbus was becoming a government-backed behemoth, and the US government was allocating all of their political capital and military procurement at MD. So the whole point of acquiring MD was to get more favorable government treatment.

What followed was not necessarily even about cost-cutting - they wanted to spread out the production of their aircraft from centralized locations (easy to QC) to cover as many different congressional districts and reap the maximum amount of political capital.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#24

Post by bryanlarsen »

colpabar wrote: post #17
mikece wrote: post #3

A friend of mine who used to work for Boeing said the downward trend started when they acquired McDonnell Douglas and the MD bean counters took over a lot of top positions at Boeing, displacing engineers. After that cost-cutting became more of an obsession than building awesome aircraft. Makes me wonder how Boeing can avoid descending into bankruptcy at this point with multiple major projects having significant issue…

boeing also makes weapons and sells them to the us gov. the plane stuff is kind of a side gig. they will be fine no matter how many people they kill.

They also have a space business which is losing staggering amounts of money due to incompetence.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#25

Post by KerrAvon »

legitster wrote: post #18
tr_user wrote: post #6

Steps in the right direction, let's get rid of more engineers and replace them with more MBAs. > However, a person familiar with the decision and who asked not to be identified commenting on sensitive personnel decisions, confirmed that Clark’s leaving was not voluntary. > Clark is an engineer. His successor Ringgold has business degrees. However she began her aviation career performing avionics systems maintenance a…

To be fair, the problem this time was with QC - not with engineering.

The person you're replying to was being sarcastic. But -- to be clear -- this was clearly a problem with the defect tracking process, not like individual QC contributors.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#26

Post by jm4 »

bavent wrote: post #8
tr_user wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

accountable as a scapegoat

Yeah firing someone who was on the engineering side is not a good look when the problems are on the MBA side.

Engineers designed and built that plane. The plane is fundamentally flawed. The engineer in charge absolutely deserves to be let go. Frankly, it should have happened after the first 2 crashes made it clear that there were problems with the plane. And they shouldn't stop there.

The problems almost certainly go deeper than engineering. It sounds like there's pressure to cut costs. Still, an engineer has a responsibility to design and build a safe airplane. If the budget prevents that, it's still the engineers' responsibility to make sure that whatever plane they can build is safe or they shouldn't build it. It's a total cop out to put it all on the MBA's when it's layer upon layer of failures that result in a plane as bad as the 737 MAX. Engineers in commercial aviation shouldn't ever be afforded the luxury of pointing the finger at their bosses. Their job above all others is to protect lives by building a good airplane.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#27

Post by FourHand451 »

colpabar wrote: post #17
mikece wrote: post #3

A friend of mine who used to work for Boeing said the downward trend started when they acquired McDonnell Douglas and the MD bean counters took over a lot of top positions at Boeing, displacing engineers. After that cost-cutting became more of an obsession than building awesome aircraft. Makes me wonder how Boeing can avoid descending into bankruptcy at this point with multiple major projects having significant issue…

boeing also makes weapons and sells them to the us gov. the plane stuff is kind of a side gig. they will be fine no matter how many people they kill.

Their government programs have hit some snags recently too. The KC-46 and Starliner programs have not exactly been smooth money-makers for them.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#28

Post by mc32 »

tr_user wrote: post #6

Steps in the right direction, let's get rid of more engineers and replace them with more MBAs. > However, a person familiar with the decision and who asked not to be identified commenting on sensitive personnel decisions, confirmed that Clark’s leaving was not voluntary. > Clark is an engineer. His successor Ringgold has business degrees. However she began her aviation career performing avionics systems maintenance a…

Looks like MBAs doing a CYA and throwing the Engs under the bus.

Why did this action take _this_ long for this to happen? To me it says they were burying their heads in the sand hoping things would blow over.

I'll believe Boeing if they turn a new leaf and prioritize engineering over marketing and being number one in aircraft deliveries in the short-term at the cost of long-term viability.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#29

Post by tareqak »

KerrAvon wrote: post #25
legitster wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the problem this time was with QC - not with engineering.

The person you're replying to was being sarcastic. But -- to be clear -- this was clearly a problem with the defect tracking process, not like individual QC contributors.

My question is, "was the defect tracking process influenced negatively by spending cuts?"

Shareholders are more than willing to reward the relevant executives for cutting spending, but they rarely hold the same people who made those cuts for issues stemming as a consequence of the aforementioned cuts.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#30

Post by thriftwy »

bobthepanda wrote: post #14
brianwawok wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so little competition, and it would be so expensive to spin something up… I could see it sputtering along for many years. Who can disrupt this? Need space X level money and research, and not sure the profit potential is as high.

It is really hard. China, Russia and Japan have tried state sponsored schemes without success. Bombardier of Canada had to throw in the towel, and Embraer of Brazil almost did. Part of the problem is also that airlines have been very good at squeezing the duopoly while demanding ever more. The competition, if it manages to get a plane in the air, usually isn’t as fuel efficient and so the airlines have mostly not bee…

Russia has a fleet of ~200 Superjet planes which are handling a significant fraction of domestic traffic, but it's indeed not clear whether any more may be built after the 2022 sanctions. They also currently do not have engine replacements.
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