737 Max: Prioritizing cost cutting to blame

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

-snip-

Although newly ousted CEO Dennis Muilenburg was an engineer, he stuck closely to the financial engineering playbook of his predecessor, Jim McNerney. Whistleblowers and leaked documents have raised damaging accusations that management drove too relentlessly to cut costs and deliver on schedule.

A former senior leader at Boeing, who asked for anonymity to speak freely, blamed the Max crisis on a “push away from engineering excellence, driven by cost-cutting.”

“All of us who care about Boeing, we want to learn from this and ensure it never happens again,” the former executive said. “We have to get back the engineering discipline and make it the No. 1 priority.”

Boeing’s proposed fix for the Max — making sure the flight control system that went haywire in the crashes has multiple redundancies — in concept is solid. In practice, it’s taking much longer than anticipated to ensure the software is bug-free and hides no pathways to another single-fault failure.

https://www.heraldnet.com/business/with-loss-of-a-previous-strategic-advantage-this-disastrous-year-will-be-followed-by-a-precarious-2020/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=3760a2a343-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-3760a2a343-228635337

[gratuitous]

1. Gee whiz, do you know what all that costs?

It really cuts down the annual bonus, and Boeing executives can barely get by on their seven- and eight-figure salaries as it is! Not to mention all those surviving family members and friends, who are just so whiny. People die every day, what's another few hundred on this or that airplane? Boeing shareholders are really going to be sore if their dividends are affected.

Won't someone please think of the executives?!

[NCjack]

5. Why must you always put the QA/QC folks first? All they do is whine and cry. None of them has ever

contributed to the competitive price of the product. It would take the fingers on 10 hands to count the number of times they came close to driving the company to total ruination. And that silly management structure where the head of QA/QC reported directly to the CEO -- that major inconvenience made it impossible to bury nuisance safety assessments.

[malaise]

2. In every sphere

promoting business school rubbish over science is destroying standards with tasteless haste.

The engineers will always win over the for profit only business school models.

[moondust]

3. Shareholders first!

Screw the flying public!

[gulliver]

4. Regulations...cough...regulations

In my subdivision, you can't just decide you feel like building a big retaining wall and putting in a pool behind it. If the retaining wall gives way, your pool washes your downhill neighbors' house into the creek (with them in it). To prevent that we have things like codes, building permits, and inspections. Regulations.

This incident underscores the need for regulations, and shows the folly of the Republican "scrap them regulations" mentality. The FAA needs the budget and regulations to ensure safety of the flying public. And we also need to ensure our businesses (like Boeing) aren't put in a world market situation where there is a race-to-the-bottom for price, safety be damned.

[BannonsLiver]

6. Airbus was kicking their ass with the A320 and A321

Still are with this mess. One thing this piece makes clear is the hellish nightmare of single aisle planes on transatlantic routes will be the norm in future years.