How everything went wrong for Boeing | DW News

A door panel that flew off mid-air on a 737 Max 9 in January that appears to have been caused by missing bolts; two crashes of the 737 MAX 8 in 2018 and 2019, in which 346 people lost their lives: tragedies in which faulty software played a role. Not to mention the pandemic, which triggered a massive dip in demand for air travel. The last few years have been a catalog of disasters for Boeing - prompting accusations that the plane maker has a "quality control" problem. DW Business speaks to Jeff Wise, aviation journalist and host of the Deep Dive MH370 podcast about what went wrong at Boeing and what the company needs to do to repair its reputation.

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[arthurdent]

Boeing not only seems to have a quality problem affecting safety, but likely also a corporate culture problem preventing employees from openly speaking up if they discover process and quality issues...

[MemoirsofaBasketcase]

What happens when you let MBAs run an engineering company.

[daveanderson]

When accountants have priority over engineers and quality control.

[chtubbie]

Side note: It was not faulty software that caused the MAX crashes.
The software worked as designed, but the design itself was flawed.

[ellenbryn]

Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas in 1996 after McDonnell Douglas went under from the lawsuits and commercial fallout of the rushed design and quality control, door blowouts, fatal crashes and coverups of the problems with the DC10.

Boeing kept MD's profit-driven, stockholder-beholden corporate managers, encouraged its own skilled factory personnel to take early retirement, and thus became MD in all but name.

-Let<s hope it doesn't take two door plug blowouts — this time — for boeing/MD TO FIX IT.

[Erik_The_Viking]

Boeing's leadership doesn't care. Cutting corners hasn't helped but it's more than that. This is really a cultural problem where financial incentives are more important.

[dain]

Boeing is doing everything it can to work itself out of commercial aviation. A real leader of a company like that would have told the media that the incident was very serious to them, and that their only goal was to ensure that all jets they had produced, and were currently building would be triple checked for ANY potential problems until they were absolutely certain that nothing like that would happen again.

But of course they said what they thought would keep their stock price from dive bombing instead.

[lambertois]

Warren Buffett quote on public image and reputation: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think
about that, you’ll do things differently!''

[boeingdriver]

This is what happens when you put bean counters at the helm rather than engineers and pilots.

[lambertois]

The spin-off of Spirit Aero Systems, was based on the McDonald Douglas management philosophy!
The degradation of the manufacturing quality is a direct result of the selling of the fuselage manufacturing to Spirit Aero Systems.
Prior to the McDonald Douglas, quality was job ONE at Boeing!
After the McDonald Douglas, profits are job ONE at Boeing!

[djsmithe]

Like a lot of corporations, chasing short term profits at any cost.

[GMCGUY-]

Rest in peace to the innocent people that have died.❤❤❤❤

[markusrobinson]

A primary reason that Boeing has NOT recovered since the pandemic is PRECISELY because passengers and investors no longer have confidence in Boeing and so the general business community is now CONVINCED that Boeing has not switched back to an engineering/safety based approach from the maximize profits approach this President, this executive, this board, this leadership embraced several decades ago after the merger. Jeff Wise is correct, Boeing management is absolutely DELUSIONAL. It will be interesting to see how and when the investors start insisting upon change at the top.

[billsoinski]

Only one thing... Putting a bean counter in power when it should have been a qualified engineer....

[garygregg]

I worked for Boeing as a full-time employee from 2002 to 2013. I was in defense in the Puget Sound Area, from 2002 to 2010, we could see evidence of the same shortsigted cost management mindset. From 2010 onward, the company moved important projects away from full-time, union represented labor in Washington State, largely to non-union contract labor in St. Louis and Oklahoma City. I am guessing that these projects now have more problems and complications than they would have. As a highly educated (I have advanced degrees in computer science, and data science), *and* a high performer 2009/2010, I was not laid off, but instead transferred to commercial aircraft in Everett, WA. But you can guess the ultimate outcome: I was laid off in 2013.

[ijvo]

Deregulation? Regulations keep Corporations in line and manage consumer safety.

[skiyalater]

Same trend in New Home construction, under trained, under qualified, under managed

[rufus]

It seems Boeing stopped putting Customers first in their corporate objectives. The lack of transparency, customer communication (engine mount, door assembly), and training (pilots) are exhibit A of an organization that stopped thinking from customers' perspective, and just focused on completion / delivery / revenue targets instead.

[tibsyy]

What's going on behind the scenes? COST CUTTING WITHOUT LIMITS!

[SkepticalTeacher]

The rot set in when they merged with MD and put the bean counters in charge, instead of the engineers.