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Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

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Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#31

Post by zdragnar »

margalabargala wrote: post #19
bobthepanda wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Bombardier of Canada had to throw in the towel To be fair, that's because Boeing forced them to sell the rights to the A220 for $1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Bo...

Boeing filed ta petition with the USITC, but it was ultimately the Department of Commerce that fined them for what they decided was unfair trade.

The USITC reversed their own decision a year or so later, and Boeing chose to not appeal the decision, but Bombardier and Canada ended up deciding to not pursue things further.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#32

Post by gumby »

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.

This was actually a QA problem — a set of design issues starting at the front of the process. All QC can do is identify problems after they have occurred.

As the saying goes, “you can’t test quality into a product.”

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#33

Post by lgleason »

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…

It creates some good optics, meanwhile the execs can funnel more money out of the company and parachute out before the thing blows up.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#34

Post by ics »

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…

While many here won't disagree in general, be wary of holding this sentiment as dogma. There can be bad apples in engineering, and MBAs who can see that whether or not they have the knowledge or experience to make it better themselves. Whether or not they can (or want to) make the next step of hiring better or more honest engineers is what matters then.

(I'm not optimistic about Boeing here, but hey.)

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#35

Post by pugworthy »

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.

And good engineers that become bad managers

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#36

Post by passwordoops »

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…

I've mentioned it somewhere else, and maybe I've just been really unlucky with my experiences in industry but I'm at the point where I feel like someone with an MBA or finance background should start any new company (regardless of previous experience) by sitting in the janitor's closet for a month. If the janitor says they're ok, the MBA can start following the janitor around at a distance of 10 feet. If they don't screw anything up, they're allowed to ask one question a day of said janitor. So on and so forth. I estimate 10-15 years of persistence before the MBA/finance can be in a position to make minor decisions

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#37

Post by nocsi »

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…

The details of the MD acquisition is pretty crazy. It was like an unintentional SPAC whereby the company you’re buying owns you

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#38

Post by pyrolistical »

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.

I don’t think they were being sarcastic

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#39

Post by marcosdumay »

ajross wrote: post #11
skynetv2 wrote: post #2

I am surprised it takes this long to make someone accountable. But it is too little too late, though a step in the right direction. It is clear that this program was flawed right from the get go.

He's only been on the job for two years, coming in to manage the project after the MCAS disaster. In some sense he's the easy person to eject. I don't think the individuals really matter that much here. The point to firing executives in charge of big failures is to incentivize the ones remaining to get their ships under control before another disaster. Clark clearly failed on that front, but again the 737 MAX program…

Oh, individuals absolutely matter.

Just not this one specific individual.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#40

Post by uuddlrlrbaba »

Has there been any word/news on addressing the self-certifying portion of these issues?

From what I gather, in addition to management prioritizing the wrong things, there has also been the issue of not enough external oversight to hold them accountable for safety.

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