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What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

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Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#341

Post by DiggyJohnson »

ctrw wrote: post #249
masklinn wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just took 25 years to finally happen. "Quality inertia" is one thing which allows for giant amounts of damage to be done long before the wheels visibly come off, as deviance gets normalised (and even mandated in cases such as Boeing) and the company eats its reserve of quality and goodwill, it starts going off-track in small ways before it falls off a cliff. It took closer to 20 years than 25 for the wheels to c…

I disagree it happened instantly, it's just that Boeing didn't make any new planes for 20 years that made it to the sky. Even the Max was a redesign of an existing design.

What’s funny is I know from personal experience that many of the folks inside Boeing at the junior to mid levels (and up, selectively) were also aware of the major culture issue well before the accidents.

This is where I started my career.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#342

Post by zmgsabst »

golergka wrote: post #324
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #70

The "funny" thing to me is that I'm old enough to remember when the merger occurred that people were predicting exactly what came to pass. It just took 25 years to finally happen.

Is it feasible to hold a short position on a stock for 25 years?

Indexes of SP500 without Boeing should outperform ones including Boeing, if you’re predicting that Boeing will underperform in 25 years. You don’t have to short; you can use the knowledge to tune your retirement holdings.

You could even weight the index ratios by how self-cannibalizing you believe each company will be.

Requires a broker that does fractional shares or a lot of money, though.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#343

Post by mp05 »

zo1 wrote: post #320
mp05 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there a particular catalyst or just a combination of factors?

Depends on who you ask really, and what side of the aisle they're on. Personally, I think at the core what started it, is the movement away from meritocracy. Other "things" took priority, and everyone on the ground was left trying to figure out how to not let the whole thing collapse whilst still servicing the new priorities given to them.

This sounds it was a bad thing for them! I hope other countries considering such agendas look at the outcome in South Africa and think twice.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#344

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #74
darth_avocado wrote: post #12

> He mocked him in weekly meetings whenever he dared contribute a thought, assigned a fellow manager to spy on him and spread rumors that he did not play nicely with others, and disciplined him for things like “using email to communicate” and pushing for flaws he found on planes to be fixed. Sounds like a regular middle manager in any tech company. Sad unfortunate effect of the power asymmetries in corporate structur…

> Sounds like a regular middle manager in any tech company. I bet this is true in some, but certainly not all, tech companies. I've only encountered one example of such a manager in my entire career (and quit just to get away from that nonsense).

[deleted]

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#345

Post by gretch »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #92
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does the stock market reward idiot shit like this? Well at a first order, the answer is that the stock market as a system for promoting value creation is an imperfect approximation of an ideal value creator, and more and more we are beginning to see the myriad of ways this concept produces antisocial results. (See for example the state of hospitals and schools, and the rising rate of individuals with crippling…

I should add that our short term market-based approach to economic activity fails to produce appropriate housing outcomes, and that the approaches in Vienna or Singapore could end our homelessness crisis and make everyone happier. I recently read a doctor’s account of the homeless people who use the ER as a community space by complaining of minor illnesses, and it seems so clear to me it would be cheaper to give them…

>I should add that our short term market-based approach to economic activity fails to produce appropriate housing outcomes

>Fixing housing could be cheaper than them using the ER or paying for their prison space, and it would also make the streets of San Francisco smell a LOOOT better (and BART)

It's extremely unfair to blame "market based solutions" for failing to fix SF housing problems when it's pretty clear the largest hurdle is NIMBYism politically blocking new housing developments.

For example here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-housing-clash-yim...

The locals won't even LET other people build new housing. They definitely aren't going to start footing the bill and building the housing themselves

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#346

Post by ninju »

redandblack wrote: post #313
pdonis wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It just took 25 years to finally happen. To me the big question is, why did it take 25 years for this to become common knowledge? Why is our system of evaluating public corporations so messed up that a public company, and one with huge government contracts to boot, could get away with this for that long?

GE seems like another firm / conglomerate that has lost its way - although we have heard about Jack Welch's management disaster, I do not know if they lost engineers the way it happened at Boeing. Last year, I bought GE Monogram kitchen appliances and was pleased that they work so well, until I found that it is a Chinese firm that has bought the use of GE's name along with their operations. Maybe that is why the appl…

GE Appliances is an American home appliance manufacturer based in Louisville, Kentucky. It has been majority owned by Chinese multinational home appliances company Haier since 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#347

Post by invig »

diputsmonro wrote: post #339
pdonis wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asking why Boeing continued to make money. I'm asking why the system as a whole didn't spot much sooner that their engineering had been trashed, and some kind of intervention wasn't made before two fatal airline accidents and other near misses happened. The point of the oversight we have is supposed to be to spot problems before they reach that level. If your answer is that not just Boeing, but our whole syst…

There is no comforting answer. Welcome to unchecked capitalism, it's short-term-profit-driven thinking all the way down. In every industry it's the same. The guard rails have been systematically dismantled for decades by opportunists just like this, hoping to make some quick cash and jump ship before it falls down. Whenever anyone points this out, they get labeled as cynics who hate capitalism and industry, and their…

We have the largest governments in human history. You might as well say "we just need stronger companies" for all the good it does to say better governments would help and remove the indirection.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#348

Post by hliyan »

masklinn wrote: post #141
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #70

The "funny" thing to me is that I'm old enough to remember when the merger occurred that people were predicting exactly what came to pass. It just took 25 years to finally happen.

> It just took 25 years to finally happen. "Quality inertia" is one thing which allows for giant amounts of damage to be done long before the wheels visibly come off, as deviance gets normalised (and even mandated in cases such as Boeing) and the company eats its reserve of quality and goodwill, it starts going off-track in small ways before it falls off a cliff. It took closer to 20 years than 25 for the wheels to c…

I call this "quality momentum". A leader can come in, look at whatever "engine" that drives quality, decide it's not essential, remove it entirely, and coast on the momentum of previous quality practices for years before entropy sets in. But by this time, the board and shareholders have already rewarded the leader for "eliminating waste".

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#349

Post by invig »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #296
pdonis wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not asking why Boeing continued to make money. I'm asking why the system as a whole didn't spot much sooner that their engineering had been trashed, and some kind of intervention wasn't made before two fatal airline accidents and other near misses happened. The point of the oversight we have is supposed to be to spot problems before they reach that level. If your answer is that not just Boeing, but our whole syst…

The system is corrupt. From planes to tampons, it's self-checking and self-reporting and a conflict of interests: the regulators have no incentive to do more work (or are paid-out not to do), the companies are corrupt to the bone, the public is blissfully not interested to hear, the C level suite is there just for the money, middle management is hired and promoted based on weird criteria, the "fake it" system works t…

Humans are corrupt.

Re: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane

#350

Post by data_maan »

Is anyone here who still has the courage to board a Boeing plane after reading this?

Parts flying off the planes, a non-existent QC culture... it sounds like the next bad accident is about to happen.

If Boeing -somehow- survives this though, it's planes might be the safest most thoroughly inspect that exist :)

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