Is Boeing's Latest Problem Actually a GOOD Thing?!

-----------------------------------------------------
Boeing is back in business following the end of strike action that ground production to a halt at the end of 2024.

But WHY are they taking so long to get their production lines back to full capacity? And could that actually be a GOOD thing!? Stay tuned!
-----------------------------------------------------
If you want to support the work I do on the channel, join my Patreon crew and get awesome perks and help me move the channel forward!

737 Course:

Our Connections:

Social:

Download the FREE Mentour Aviation app for all the latest aviation content

Below you will find the links to videos and sources used in this episode.

SOURCES
-----------------------------------------------------

#Mentourpilot #pilot #aircraft

[grene]

Many years go, I was a tech support manager for an electronics manufacturer in a completely differently industry. We suddenly got a couple of calls indicating a serious issue with one of our flagship products. When I realized the significance of the issue, I shut down shipping, which I really didn't have the authority to do. Long story short, we researched and identified the cause, took care of our customers, and recovered from the issue. I was told repeatedly by our customers, "I knew you'd take care of me, no worries. But don't let it happen again!".My point being, most customers, if you have a a good relationship, will work with you, depending on how you handle the problems when they occur. Relationships are the key.

[Blank]

Their biggest issue right now is reputation. They pre-emptively get blamed by press and public for incidents that might not be their fault. Jeju Air is a great example.

[imkindofabigdeal]

Boeing seems to be refocusing on aerospace engineering vs financial engineering. About time!

[craiglang]

As a retired QA inspector, who worked in manufacturing my entire life, I admit to be unfamiliar with the term "traveled work'. But statistically, moving any assembly outside of a carefully studied and documented process sets off alarm bells. Also, not mentioned here is worker morale. In manufacturing in this country, workers are constantly asked to work faster and more efficiently, which causes stress, while the rewards flow almost entirely to management and shareholders.

[connielentz]

It’s like crew resource management for the executives.

[mikeske]

As a retired Boeing 30 year production worker I am actually glad to see this slow ramp up back into production. This gives the managers, production engineers and particularly line workers to get the various aircraft that had traveled work done and completed before doing the actual line back up and running. Having all the various "traveled" work done and the workers back to the various spots on the production line where they belong will also make it a smoother transition to full production. This also gives the company time to get the safety and production inspections back up to speed on the line. This is actually a positive for the long term.

I have other things I think about the way things were done in the past and one of them is after strikes of which I was personally involved in that maybe looking at the penny wise but pound foolish got Boeing to the state that they came to be.

[toms]

Great analysis Petter...you're spot on. The old expression holds true here: you need to learn how to walk before you can run. Changing one's culture, revamping QA programs and production protocols/procedures doesn't happen overnight. This is not an environment where you hit the ground running. Taking slow and deliberate steps is appropriate and will bear fruit in the long run. Getting it right now is dollar wise, as opposed to their former penny wise philosophy. Kelly Ortberg seems to be the right person for the Job. I'm sure he's rifling through Boeing's corporate management ranks and weeding out the bad apples. Cheers!

[gizmophoto]

Your arguments ring true to me. I am reminded of a quote from Richard Feynman: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Persistently focusing on maximizing the next quarter's financial results will eventually disconnect an organization from reality, especially if quality suffers.

[Elon-dbds]

Petter isn’t only a master aviator but also a master storyteller! He could narrate a random owners manual and I would probably watch it! Like I always say Petter is part man, part machine!

[TinaDanielsson]

This is the best way to use an unplanned and unavoidable stop in production.

I was working in a company where we hosted a system for a customer. About once a week the system stopped and we couldn't find the cause of the issue while the system was running properly, and we couldn't recreate the issue either. The only way to reset the system was a physical reboot and that meant that someone had to physically walk to another building 10 minutes away to do that. Finding someone that had the time to do that often took a while so each stop often took about an hour. That became the routine for at least several months 🤦‍♀

It was costing our customer a lot of money each time and the were naturally getting more and more frustrated with us. One day I was in charge of the operations and I took the decision to use the time it usually took to reset the system to do an investigation while it was in the error state. And it payed off. The cause of the issue was found and a permanent fix was put in place.

[quinnocent]

I think Ortberg's experience heading up development of the turboencabulator at Rockwell prepared him well for this job. He was the one who identified the side-fumbling issue, which lead to process improvements in production of the spurving bearings.

[Chris-cvll]

The main reason is the timing of when we returned. The last two weeks of December is vacation for all the workers. It was easier for everyone to focus on certs and maintenance than production. Power on for the first 777x for a customer was scheduled for the middle of December and this was pushed back to, well, this previous week or so.

Edit: I will add that workers also refuse to do anything at or below their job code because it is “out of their job code scope” even though the contract says they can be required to do it as needed.

[johnstafford]

The 2005 "sale" of the entire Wichita campus that ended up as Spirit Aerosystems was a blatant way to pull off a massive age discrimination scam. Unless you had a critical skill, anyone over 50 was not hired by the so called new company. Older employees are not only at the top of their pay scale, health insurance costs are higher.
After cutting the workforce by thousands, it didn't take long for them to be replaced by younger workers at $14 an hour. I was making $26 when I was let go. Their quality problems started long before the escape hatch blowout. The union filed suit. There was smoking gun memos, meeting notes & emails promising the Canadian company the could reduce age & seniority by specific numbers. I wonder how much Boeing gave the judge? We lost! 😡

[PNW_Green_Gaming]

Bro, this isn’t a “deliberate” slow ramp up. We just can’t. We don’t have the trained personnel. Boeing lowered the barrier of entry to get hired that we were taking literally anyone that applied. And it shows. I’m a traveler QA inspector and it’s atrocious on the recovery ramp.

[LarrySluss]

I am 87years old and have been with computers in one form or another since 1964. I have flown (as) stand-by in five continents and dozens of countries - my daughter works for one of the three biggest airlines in the US. I'm a retired process engineer for a hospital in the central US – specialized as an Oracle DBA. Some of the things we always looked for in the health areas was the same as the processes you speak of in this clip - -- it's one very bad thing to have a side door blow off, but put a person on the operating table and you don't want to blow out a computerized tool on the table.

A second role I had after retiring from health care was about five years I worked for General Electric Aviation in their offices in Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Any engine part that was returned to GE for repair or improvement had its own serial number. ANY work done on a part, from getting the request, to opening the box it came in, to the ID of every person that did ANY work on it, was documented in the data base.

I like to tell people that if that were ever in a plane crashed due to the failure of a part in a GE engine in our data base, they could RIP that it was possible to find what repair worker messed up - in jest, but true.

[JimNotter-yr]

After working in manufacturing for over 40 years, I would like to say that we called JIT, just in trouble. It is only great if everything is in perfect sync, which it is often is not.

[itsme-vwyo]

Being number 2 in commercial plane brand is better than being bankrupt and being out of production

[jinx-the-cat-sith]

10:48 Good old “The Toyota Way” (JIT - Just-In-Time) manufacturing. Oh the experiences I’ve had. 😂 Great video, Petter.

[tomg]

When you show the Renton, WA Boeing plant and the Renton Airport runway, it brings back fond memories of doing many touch-and-gos and emergency procedures work on that runway when I was working towards my PPL. Loved the approach in over Lake Washington!!!

[mholzer]

Suggestion: Jeppesen is a legend. When I worked on my Instrument, my instructor insisted that I use the "Jepp" plates in lieu of the NOAA plates of yesteryear. My suggestion is if you could turn your team out to research the history of Jeppesen. I always marveled at the monumental effort to edit/create/retire plates from all over the world and then distribute the updates like a clock. What do you think? If I were looking for a thesis to get a Master's in Business, an analysis of what made them what they were and their advancements into the future.