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Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

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Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#71

Post by nonameiguess »

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…

Here's her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-ringgold-88484140/deta...

Interesting that she spent a few years in Belize after getting out of the Air Force. This is the description of her MOS: http://www.mosdb.com/air-force/2A133/mos/1559/

I don't think you're being all that fair here. I have no idea whether she's going to do a good job or not, but there's more to a person than the degree they got. Former military getting business degrees is pretty common and often the only reason is they were the most likely program to offer distance learning and night class options back in 2001. I'll say, as an engineer with a CS degree who is also a former commissioned officer, former military can be hit and miss, but in many ways I'd be more confident going with prior enlisted who got a degree via the GI Bill than other commissioned officers. There can be a tendency with the way we get trained in the military to become serious yes men. You never say no to a commander and you always attempt to accomplish any mission without question, no matter how ludicrous or impossible it is. That makes sense in wartime but not in business and many do not understand that or know how to turn off that attitude.

Prior enlisted, however, are usually not that fanatical about pleasing superiors. Their rating and promotion process is a lot saner and they tend to be more aligned and care more about the career field they were in. In her case, you can see this involved ensuring and maintaining the quality of aircraft comms and nav systems. That's probably not a bad place to come from. I was a tank commander back in the day myself, and I can say there was nobody who cared more that the tanks were reliable and safe than the career enlisted tank crewmen and tank mechanics. I would trust them with my life way before I would trust a career engineer who had never served on or with a crew.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#72

Post by nickff »

bombcar wrote: post #60
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.

I'm sure SpaceX could build a jet if they wanted to. I'm also certain they don't want to.

Commercial aircraft are significantly more complex and regulated than rockets are (for now). Many companies can develop aircraft (e.g. bombardier), but few can actually get them into production.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#73

Post by wkat4242 »

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…

Embraer does really well though.

I much rather fly in an E195 E2 than a 737 or A320 Neo. Really next level. KLM has these, unfortunately they rarely use them to my destination because they can fill a 737 to there as well :(

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#74

Post by djmips »

itishappy wrote: post #62
legitster wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I am a bit confused. Someone was supposed to be checking the bolts before the plane left the facility and they didn't. That seems to be a QC process issue more than a QA issue. But that also seems like splitting hairs. The problem is not one of engineering design, to OP's post.

I disagree somewhat. It should not be possible for a plane to leave the factory without completing all QC checks. People are fallible, so a robust process is critical, and designing/confirming a robust QC process is a QA responsibility.

And these QC design people are engineers.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#75

Post by f1shy »

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.

I see a lot of comments trying to pin point the problem with a name. People: if in an airplane some pieces are taken off, they have to be labeled. In fact anything entering or leaving the airplane has to be noted, juat like in an op-room, to avoid for example forgetting tools (or loose bolts) somewhere. That is basic ABC 101 of working in an airplane.

Why this happened? Massive cost cuts ordered by management, which led to cut corners, or cut trainings, or both. If ing. Or MBA is irrelevant. If I have to guess, I would point to an MBA

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#76

Post by throwup238 »

bloopernova wrote: post #68
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #44

Ablative management: Layered heat shield of dispensable people that burn off to protect the capsule with the execs.

Completely off topic, but I always wondered what was so special about Deep Space 9's USS Defiant and its "ablative armour". Sure, it was a plot device, but everyone who encountered it seemed astounded by it.

Instead of expending energy to deflect energy weapons fire, the ablative armor undergoes controlled ablation so the outer layers of the armor vaporize or erode when struck by weapon fire, taking the brunt of the attack's energy. This meant that the "total energy" available to defend the ship wasn't limited by the ship's power but by the starbase assembling the ship and the armor could survive a lot more malfunction and battle damage (the shields became completely useless once they burned out). Until the introduction of the armor everyone thought that physical defenses couldn't be used effectively against energy weapons.

Voyager's ablative generator also provided regenerative capability so it didn't need a space dock to repair heavy damage.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#77

Post by itishappy »

djmips wrote: post #74
itishappy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree somewhat. It should not be possible for a plane to leave the factory without completing all QC checks. People are fallible, so a robust process is critical, and designing/confirming a robust QC process is a QA responsibility.

And these QC design people are engineers.

Right! It's engineers all the way down...

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#78

Post by g96alqdm0x »

OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #44

Ablative management: Layered heat shield of dispensable people that burn off to protect the capsule with the execs.

I get the sentiment, but I much prefer this to the alternative, which is rank and file employees getting laid off. It’s much better to have accountability that starts at the top and then trickles down. Too often it feels like workers are the only ones who suffer from the bad decisions of executive leadership.

Re: Boeing ousts 737 MAX chief

#79

Post by cryptonector »

class3shock wrote: post #65
jm4 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 responsibilit…

This is not how companies work. Engineers at Boeing didn't have a design labeled "not-good-enough-but-cheap" and another labelled "more-skookum-but-is-expensive" and because they were bad engineers decided to go with the cheap one. It's a systemic issue due to cost cutting by, you guessed it, people MBA's. No engineer, if given the choice, would have re-used the old plane design instead of designing a fully new, mode…

And no engineer would have gone with only two AoA sensors.

And no engineer would have made the computer ignore one of those two AoA sensors because two isn't enough and now you have a dilemma of which to trust.

And no engineer would have cooked up the cockamamie idea of hiding the new CAS scheme so that they could claim that the new plane was the same type as the previous plane.

And no engineer would have insisted that the new plane was the same type as the previous plane.

And no engineer would have threatened the U.S. Congress with canceling the whole program if they don't get the waivers needed to get the plane flying.

And...

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