
Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet - gsbraitberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html
======
brookside
_Boeing South Carolina teammates are producing the highest levels of quality
in our history,” Kevin McAllister, Boeing’s head of commercial airplanes, said
in a statement. “I am proud of our teams’ exceptional commitment to quality
and stand behind the work they do each and every day._

Whoever is sitting down to write Boeing's PR response quotes needs to be
fired, along with whichever c-suite exec is approving them. It's not
acceptable to totally ignore actual safely issues being brought to light and
respond universally with panglossian emptiness.

The quote about not needing to ground the Max, before being ordered to do so,
was especially egregious.

~~~
bufordtwain
Although it seems to be the same playbook as used by Trump - which so far has
worked well for him. Deny deny deny and say you're the very best.

~~~
vondur
Keep your politics to yourself, it has nothing to do with the topic being
discussed.

~~~
sophacles
Boeing safety is a political issue:

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/boeing-...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/boeing-
ceo-called-president-trump-after-737-max-8-disaster-ny-times-2019-3)

If a company tries (temporarily successfully) to use political connections to
respond to safety issues, it's fair to bring that up in light of related
safety issues.

~~~
fallous
Which of course has nothing to do with the actual political message in the
original comment to which vondur was responding. Had that comment made any
reference to a relationship between Boeing and a particular politician, or
political group, it would indeed be fair to bring that to light.

------
_s
Profit before people / product / planet.

It’s been the downfall of many companies, and in this case, has resulted in
the unnecessary death of many individuals.

Boeing is currently in the spotlight, but there are so many other companies -
ranging from pharma to agriculture to tech, that also adhere to the above
mantra and have been the cause of much death and destruction.

You can’t blame individuals, nor the companies here. The system they operate
in requires them to report quarterly; with a priority on short term
performance over a longer term outlook (it exists, but not overtly so). When
you don’t meet those short term goals, both individuals (employee reviews,
getting laid off etc) and the company (value on the public or private market)
suffers.

I don’t know if there is a “fix”, or if it needs fixing at all, as our rapid
progress is also down to this competitive and unforgiving environment.

~~~
bad_alloc
> You can’t blame individuals

You can and you have to. Corporations are structuredi nsuch a way that there
is always somebody who is in charge of a certain project or descision. Of
course this might be hidden. in order to fight "Profit before people / product
/ planet", these individuals need to be punished. It cannot be allowed that
blame diffuses in a corporation. Otherwise there will be no change.

~~~
lisper
That's actually not true. If the punishment is severe enough then it can be
made to diffuse all the way back to the shareholders in a way that they will
notice, and that will eventually bring about change.

The problem is that we have insulated the shareholders from responsibility so
that granny can buy blue chip stocks to fund her retirement without having to
actually pay attention to the bothersome details of corporate governance.
Management is doing exactly what it was hired to do: maximize granny's ROI by
any means necessary.

~~~
CamperBob2
How do you propose to punish shareholders?

Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of
dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Jail them? Good luck with that.

What else can/should be done to them, in your opinion?

~~~
lisper
> Fine them? The market already does that, to the tune of tens of billions of
> dollars in the 737 MAX case.

Really? How? The day before the Lion Air crash Boeing stock was just a hair
under $360 a share. Today it's at $380. How exactly is that punishing the
shareholders?

The market isn't punishing Boeing shareholders because everyone knows full
well that the U.S. government will not allow the last domestic producer of
commercial jets to go bankrupt.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Really? How? The day before the Lion Air crash Boeing stock was just a hair
under $360 a share. Today it 's at $380. How exactly is that punishing the
shareholders?_

Well, that's not exactly the whole story, is it? What happened on March 8?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+stock](https://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+stock)

A single crash won't usually tank the company's stock, nor should it.

~~~
lisper
> What happened on March 8?

The stock dropped 5%. And your point would be...?

> A single crash won't usually tank the company's stock, nor should it.

This was two crashes. Caused by gross negligence. Yeah, that ought to put a
dent in the stock price IMHO.

------
blck
I'm reminded of the comment linked here on reddit from a former Boeing
employee employed 2008-2009 (allegedly).

>To this day, I refuse to fly on a 787. I'm sure that the Dreamliners that
came off the assembly line after about a year or so were fine but there's that
first year of production that, as far as I'm concerned, are ticking time
bombs. I talked to many engineers who had worked on that program to know just
how badly they rushed that initial production.

Honestly, I already feel guilty flying due to the crazy amount of pollution
these planes put out. Now I've got a slight fear that my plane might randomly
fuck up due to software and now I feel like I should just stay grounded.

~~~
rayiner
Is this some new thing making rounds on the internet? Airplanes account for 5%
of all CO2 emissions, and only a fraction of that is individuals flying. The
average American would have to take a dozen New York-Tokyo flights per year to
even double their carbon footprint.

I assume you’ve addressed more important sources of carbon emissions, such as
moving to a state that doesn’t require heating in the winter or AC in the
summer. (And it goes beyond saying that you don’t use Amazon prime or buy
anything shipped air freight.)

~~~
kikoreis
This is off topic but it was startling to me when I looked at CO2 stats that
there was so little air travel and so much energy generation and heating. I
think we have just stumbled upon the real reason we haven't fully grokked
climate change yet.. the problem is much simpler and more brutal than most of
us perceive.

~~~
gonyea
Installing a foam roof or replacing the insulation in your walls goes a long
way and saves a lot of money on energy costs over time.

~~~
drilldrive
My family has installed a house-fan that we use whenever we like the out-doors
temperature moreso than our in-doors temperature, which is quite often in our
summer months at night.

------
Boxbot
Reminder that Boeing went to SC for massive government subsidies and a
cheaper, non-unionized work force. But don't worry, I'm sure they're not being
penny wise, pound foolish anywhere else!

(This behavior is by no means unique to Boeing or unusual at all).

------
iFred
The Charleston build out just felt rushed. From the IT perspective, it felt
that everything was half assed, where the thought they could just stamp
Everett in South Carolina. I have memories of managers flying back to Renton
to just get mundane things for the South Carolina flight line when they
probably should have been installed during construction.

When I left in 2010, it became somewhat of an internal joke that you were
never fired from Boeing, just sent to Charleston.

------
Scipio_Afri
Sure, the power of unions can sometimes be too much in terms of compensation
demands but it certainly isn't like that frequently and their benefits far
outweigh their negatives and outlier issues. However most importantly, in
cases where there is poor worker safety, issues with production quality or
life endangering corners are being cut, workers can speak up knowing that they
have protections through the union should managemen be happy to retaliate
about what they say. We are all safer because of those protections and
securities a work force like that has.

------
gonyea
_In North Charleston, the pace of production has quickened. Starting this
year, Boeing is producing 14 Dreamliners a month, split between North
Charleston and Everett, up from the previous 12. At the same time, Boeing said
it was eliminating about a hundred quality control positions in North
Charleston._

These planes are going to start failing in unison in a few years.

~~~
notfromhere
Good thing Boeing isn't one half of a commercial flight duopoly, because boy
that would be bad.

------
torgian
God damn, that’s horrible! FOD inside the aircraft at time of manufacturing?

Shit. I take back everything I said about preferring to flying civilian
aircraft. Throw me on a P3 or C130 any day. At least we took FOD seriously on
those old things.

Shame on Boeing, and shame on the CEO making the typical blanket phrase.

