Why this whistleblower claims Boeing used defective parts in its planes Why this whistleblower claims Boeing used defective parts in its planes | CNN Business
In Spanish they call it "Se Vende Patria". It means to sell ones heritage, ones country, ones past. After McDonnell Douglas took over Boeing, the new management started selling it as fast as they could - after all it wasn't *their* heritage. There is a lot of ruin in a multi billion dollar company, and it is only now that it is becoming obvious to outsiders. The line workers pulling parts out of the trash are only following guidance from management, nothing more.
I used to say: "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going." Now I say: "If God had intended for me to fly, we wouldn't have rental cars with unlimited mileage." They can't even build a space capsule - something that humans have been doing since 1961.
The new & improved Boeing considers personnel an expense, not an asset, and has shed as many of them as possible. They thought they would outsource everything except management, so they fired all those fussy old white men who actually knew how to build an airplane. The company is still running on inertia and back orders - the entire industry has multi-year wait times for aircraft - so they should be OK as long as they can use the old plans to build aircraft that were designed in the 1960's. It is not clear that they are still capable of designing and building anything new, but for now they look perfectly fine from the outside.
I used to scoff at the idea of getting information from comics. Lately I have found that they do a very good job in some cases. This is ~30 minutes, so if is long. But it is shorter than the book I found it quite informative delivered in such a way that made it go down easier.
Where they show CEO Dave Calhoun saying "We had a quality escape" he is being disingenuous. Boeing used to have Quality Assurance guys who went around after jobs were done and specifically checked that they were done to spec. In those days they had the power to make you come back and do it again, and management didn't care if it added a little time to production. The new & improved Boeing thinned them out to the point where the few who were left were not physically able to do the work assigned them. They also understood that they would be punished if they slowed production. Anyone who still turned in the correct paperwork stayed, anyone who refused to pencil whip it or cost them time was let go. To add just a little hint of spice, line workers had to sign a form stating that they acknowledged that *they* were legally responsible if anything was done wrong. I assume this was just another layer of legal insulation for management.
That fits well with the video. Really sad to see a company dedicated to quality and safety change to one concerned solely on stock price.
In fairness, they do think about more than that. There is also the matter of containing costs. They built a whole assembly plant in Carolina for the specific purpose of breaking the union in Washington. They stated that if the union did not agree to the new package the upcoming plane would be built exclusively in Carolina, and Renton would be closed for a while. The union caved, line workers lost their pensions, salaries dropped dramatically, and nowadays when the CEO retires, his pension is a quarter of a million dollars per month, but the line workers, well they can always work part time at Wallmart, right? After that they started making planes in Carolina anyhow. They hired guys who had no aviation experience, so they were cheap. After a while they got so they could make a plane, but there are persistent rumors that some of Boeings major customers are so unhappy with the results that they will only accept a plane built in Renton. I think it was the Carolina guys who figured out that if they had one guy jump on a carbon fiber part it would bend far enough that the other guy could fasten it.
Ah....I see. CNN lied to me again. It was those inbred, red hat wearing Carolinians that wrecked the company's reputation! Who knew? I was told that all of the narrow body planes were built out on the left coast. Boeing accepts plea deal to avoid criminal trial over 737 Max crashes, Justice Department says | AP News. I guess I missed the Starliner splashdown too.....
