not only that I still cant figure out exactly what these "shadow factories"do. But the obvious simple solution is somethings Wall Street whores like Calhoun will not do, and that's simply slow down the main production line a bit for more comprehensive inspections before delivery to the next step. Do they really need to crank out one and a half 737s every day? How about 30 per month again - like when before the QC problems started [-800] and let Spirit do their own QC again.
Take it from someone who works in a manufacturing environment: if you're ever in a position where you need a "shadow factory", y'all need to shut the place down and decide if its worth it to keep going. The fact they kept and entire rework line going for any period of time is just beyond crazy.
@@RubyMonkey530 That's why I am questioning exactly what is a "shadow factory?" If we're not talking about metrology and NDT, then what the hell are they doing exactly?
@@gendaminoru3195Boeing used to manufacture most of the aircraft structure themselves. Then they decided to split the manufacturing part of the company into a separate business which is now Spirit Aerospace. The idea was that Spirit would be responsible for supplying components to Boeing that meet the standards required by Boeing, on the schedule required by Boeing and at the price Boeing decided. Spirit also somehow needed to make a profit for themselves as well. Spirit was shipping components to Boeing without quality control checks being done or knowing there were flaws. They were focused on keeping the schedule above all else because that is what Boeing wanted. That resulted in teams from suppliers traveling with the faulty components to Boeing and trying to correct the issues with the components while other assembly processes were taking place. I distinctly remember a Boeing executive complaining that the assembly line was backed up because people were manually correcting improper rivet installation on every rivet on aircraft when he thought it was safe enough to fly until the aircraft was taken apart for inspection after several years of operation. The processes and the disregard for quality standards would be unacceptable to build Ikea furniture. The culture at Boeing is criminal.
@@gendaminoru3195 my guess is major rework/repair of assembled planes or fixing components. Spirit Areospace supposedly sent staff from Kansas to Washington state to perform "warranty repairs" on 737 fuselages. How 'bout you send in spec product like a normal, functioning supplier.
That would be correct...if you put "fanboyism" aside, airbus is dominating with its a320 family...only problem airbus a320 has (and therefore shifting a ton of orders to Boeing)? They take forever to assemble a plane... Boeing 737 max had sold loads of units due to discounts and to be quicker at fullfilling orders...as simples as that...
@@jpazinhoonly problem with that argument is that it’s wrong. Boeing were getting 31-33 737s out of the door in 2023, whilst airbus managed a steady 48/month. Airbus is ramping up production to 75 a month, while the FAA has banned Boeing from increasing production rates. By the end of 2024 Airbus will be producing 2 A320s for every 737 Boeing makes. Airbus spends money on proper QC, but still out produces Boeing. Boeings problem is 1. Poorly trained staff, 2. Poor management, 3. No investment in QC, 4. They fired most of their critical QC staff whilst 5. Retaining QC staff that accepted to turn a blind eye to their incompetence. Boeing are only quicker to get aeroplanes out of the door because of the lack of time spent on QC and the much shorter production backlog.
@@drjojo4624 that would be correct...if you ignore the fact that the airbus backlog is bigger than Boeing's (particularly on the a320 and the a350 - I've kept myself to orders of planes actually flying) In short, if you need to a buy plane...airbus queue is bigger - you know you will have to wait longer for that plane...
@@jpazinho You seem to forget that Boeing has a limit to how many 737 MAX airplanes they are allowed to produce every month. This limit has been enforced by FAA because Boeing can build them fast but they come out with all sort of quality issues. Airbus is steadily producing more A320 family aircraft every month than Boeing simply because Airbus do not have any limit to how many airplanes they are allowed to produce simply because they produce their airplanes without the kind of quality issues that are experienced at Boeing. Being able to build more is worthless if you cannot build more with no quality issues. It's better to produce a little bit less and make sure that the products you produce are perfect than produce more when the products being put out are full of faults. The problem Boeing is facing is simply the difference in American and European business culture. In American business culture, only share prices matter while in European business culture, quality and reputation matter.
@@TheChiefEng again...a lot of words but your still missing my point - Boeing fullfills orders faster as it has a signifcantly smaller backlog...for an airline (say ryanair) is better to place an order for planes having 4000 ahead of yours at a pace of 38 delivered per month, than it is to place an order for planes having 7200 ahead of yours at a pace of 45 delivered per month...
This reminds me of the US auto industry in the 80s, it was more important to keep the line moving and getting cars out the door, then they would fix them after.
It kept on going that way through the 2000s. My father worked for General Motors and he would tell me how they always stressed to keep the line moving. Some people would make mistakes and let the quality guys deal with it (though I'm sure it was missed a few times). They really didn't want anyone pressing the button to stop the line unless something was completely botched.
The US auto industry in the 1980s didn't have a racism problem like Boeing does. They need to go back to hiring people based on merit rather than skin color and pronouns.
TBH it sounds to me like there's a significant fraction of Boeing management that doesn't understand anything about anything. "We've saved a huge amount of money on production by out-sourcing. I don't understand why we are having to spend so much money fixing problems with what our contractors deliver. Can anybody explain that to me? ... tumbleweed ...."
The problem started when Boeing decided it was going to cut costs by moving everything out of Renton, whether by moving production to non-union supporting states or outsourcing production of parts.
What the hell does being union have to do with production quality.. NOTHING , DIDDLE AND SQUAT.. if anything being union would actually decrease quality.. just look a Toyota.. the problem Boeing has is processes.. when your secondary contractors are more concerned with hiring DEI employees then qualified humans, the unions are moreover concerned about keep the union dues rolling in
Feb 2019 via Seattle times But in December a Boeing system called Process Monitoring revealed a breakdown in quality. In one job category, an internal audit found only 93 percent of tasks were done correctly, short of the required 95 percent. The specific category of work that fell short of even the 95 percent requirement is called “Bond and Ground,” which means ensuring that all the components in the airplane are electrically grounded and that the connections or bonds between the components provide a continuous grounded electrical pathway through the metal airframe.
Nope, from where I stand the issue with Boeing is systemic cutting of quality control staff, procedures and ignoring safe concerns for greater profit. Just look at the NTSB request on the documentation on the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout. Boeing has no record of the door work! 🤦♂
Do they have no record or are they pretending they don't have it? It's better to say "oops we lost it" than to show it and prove that the work is indeed sub standard
@@osasunaitorIf there's no record it means that automatically the worst is assumed. In every regular business having records is always better than having none. Because that means a full blown investigation and very likely removal of certification and license. Having to reapply, if even possible. Not sure if this clown and monkey show has anything to do with regular business however.
@@osasunaitor Uhh, objection sir! To say, as you state it, " oops we lost it" , both ways are just showing that you do not have your act together. And it shows very very clear that you either never read your job Manual, aka jobdescription, or you are willingly incompetent for whatever the reason may be. As an Ex jet engine mechanic i can only tell you ,if you dont follow the rules and orders de minutiae , you are allready in deep deep shit, and if you go like " oops i lost it", whatever it may be you lost , you're pretty shure ,pretty fast out of Business! Permanently! So i just wonder how Boing ever was allowed to run as losely as it has been very obviously the case here. This has a real foul smell to it. And how comes , there is no NTSB Agents in the shop , the Minute NTSB got wind of such shemes , closing down the entire operation, sacking everybody , who even scarcely has to do with Maintenance, threatening everybody with for life imprisonment, may it be a mere lineguy or a Ceo , and toothpicking the place like a Marinedrillseargent during hoochinspection. That would be, to my simple understanding , the only right and correct solution!
The Dreamliner also had quality issues with tools and trash left behind from the production line. There was a threat to refuse aircraft from the SC plant not long ago.
Well, in 10-20 years, the biggest commercial airplane makers could be Airbus, Comac and Boeing in that order. Boeing needs to sort out their problems. Maybe, they should start with replacing their entire senior management and move their headquarters back to where it belongs.
It doesn’t even need to be superb. Maybe if the workers wouldn’t fly on the plane, they shouldn’t push it out the door to customers. WTF is wrong with these MBA people 🤬
May 6, 2019 via usaToday: Boeing is pushing ahead on a plan to cut about 900 inspectors, replacing their jobs with technology improvements at its Seattle area factories, despite being under fire for software flaws in the 737 Max and quality issues in its other aircraft.
Shadow factory: where the 787 originated from (Everett, WA, USA). The root cause was original production being pulled from Everett and moved to Charleston, SC to save money on production and not to pay union wages.
When corporate culture is infected with the greed virus, it becomes very difficult to cure their board of that problem. Boeing has embarrassed itself repeatedly since the "merger" (hostile takeover) by McDonnell Douglass by abandoning its "engineering first" philosophy to its "greed first" suicide plan. Engineering helped Boeing become a leading aviation legend. Greed has led Boeing to one disaster after another.
@@benwilson6145 The excuse has gone extinct. This became a self-sabotaging "business model" that has erased years of earned respect and thoughtful innovation that made Boeing a powerhouse in commercial aviation. I miss the old, creative Boeing. Today's Boeing can't get out of its own way. Until enlightened management steps back in, we are likely to witness a continued spate of easily preventable errors that undermine public confidence in their aircraft.
Repositioning manpower to “new production” seems like the exact opposite of what Boeing needs and it certainly doesn’t sound like a solution. More of a consequence of the 787 faults being remedied. They should probably be taking that manpower, re-educating them into quality control or positioning them in a way that actually remedies the mistakes on the 737, while they happen.
Latam Air had a 787 incidental sudden drop in altitude just a couple days ago. Turns out, a switch on the back of the pilot's seat was faulty and moved the seat forward, pitching the nose down, overcoming the autopilot, and injuring dozens of passengers and crew.
And as said in the end, the paradox thing is, that this doesn’t even benefit them financially. 6:00 they put more hours into the planes in the shadow factory’s than in the normal production. If they would put in more effort/ hours into really building and checking the plane in the first place, they wouldn’t have to spend so much on the shadow factory’s. But hey that’s the thing with cost cutting in this sector, you will only benefit from it in the short run…
One of the main reasons Boeing diverted manufacturing to suppliers or subsidiaries was to replace union labor with lower cost workers. Why does not the media report on the relationship between unions and quality control?
It seems insane that a company would produce aircraft as fast as possible, only to spend the same amount of time fixing mistakes. Build it right, first time, every time. And you'll never need a 'shadow' or cock up fixing factory...
When the Boeing headquarters was in the same state problem were much easier to address and literally brought to the front door of executives. Some might agree that the reason they left is because the executive bean counters got tired of arguing with the people that actually design and build the airplanes.
Well, maybe if Boeing had engineers running the company ,like they used to,instead of bean counters and those concerned about meeting schedules as well as shareholder value,things would be different.
It's highly doubtful that the clowns and monkeys part at Boeing changed substantially. They can't even get airplane redesigns certified right now. Not even going to mention a new design. And essentially in which way 4 missing bolts on an old design are different from a clean sheet design with 4 missing bolts?
I fear not, because of American Greed and Stupidity. If making money however the way , is more important than other peoples life and wellfare, and no one in Management is either able or willing to take the responsibility and is even getting through with this attitude, there will practically be zero change! So we will going on to see more spectacular / dangerous bullshit by Boing. The only way to change anything at Boing , would be, to sack each and every managerial Position, threaten those guys with imprisonment for live , and even get more then 10 of those people inprisoned , and no lowtier lineguy , just people from on high Management, and i believe that would sent the rest of those bullshitters either flying or they step in line like a Marine battalion during morning Parade.
The military has a description that perfectly suites Boeing. The first word is Cluster and the second starts with F. You couldn't pay me to step on a Max and I am questioning the build quality of all Boeing jets. I don't play games with my safety. Russian roulette is not a game I play at any time. Until they remove McDonnell Douglas mentality, where money is more important than safety and paying lawsuits is cheaper than fixing the product. I wont fly on Boeing products.
One of the toughest jobs in aviation is that of QA & Safety Auditor. Part of that are Internal Audits which are intended to find faults in systems & procedures & assure they are corrected. What we have at Boeing is a complete failure of Management to implement a standardized quality assurance program at every subcontractor. The culture of safety that set Aviation apart from other industries seems to have been lost at Boeing.
With all the outsourcing and subcontracting both BOEING & FAA have lost ALL-CONTROL over these areas. Neither BOEING nor FAA have the personnel for effective oversight. Both are culpable of Corporate Manslaughter! Companies MUST listen to and act on their employees suggestions to be both profitable and successful. Thank GOD for persons like: Ed Pierson / John Barnett / Joshua Dean / Sam Salephour and others, for standing up for safety! Retired TCCA Safety Inspector Maintenance.
Of the 88 tests they officially failed 33, we can assume it was higher but that would put peoples retirement plans in jeopardy becusse of all the stock loss.
Is the Shadow Factory closing down because things aren’t being screwed up anymore or is it because we are ignoring the mistakes? The latter seems more likely. Boeing needs to slow the F down and focus on building it right from the start. That Shadow factory should live on as a quality inspection operation until they sort out their production issues.
It appears that most of the quality non-conformance issues with the 787 relate to the fact that it is being built in their SC plant. Approx. 15 years ago when Boeing was lured into SC with all kind of financial incentives, they quickly found out that there was non existent local pool of qualified workers, and, they had to train thousands of locals in the highly complex technical disciplines necessary for building quality aircraft. The problem of quality, and QC has been lingering ever since.
Duh. Imagine building parts at spririt once, sending parts to boeing, who then fix it once, then after assembly notice more problems to fix it thrice. Assemble and disassemble anything 3 times and see if its quality is as equal to having just done it right the 1st time. No wonder bolts are missing or tools/trasy wre being left inside aircraft
I'm wondering when they will ammend part 187 and pay fees for FAA Certification and Oversight since other businisses or confronted with rising compliancy costs? For instance ESH, GHG, LCA's and Carbon Footprint, Supply Chain... etc. How many FAA officers are now daily involved in Boeing? 300-400? So 45M$/yr. at min.?
The question is are those planes that have lose bolts, missing washers, and the door plug blow out from the shadow factory or if that are the planes that are considered good and not needed to go through the shadow factory. If they are from the shadow factory, then yes they should shut it down as it's not fixing the production mistakes anyways. If they are not, then they should double down on the shadow factory and make every plane go through a second pass in the shadow factory.
The big question is, will the FAA and congress have the ability to overcome regulatory capture and force Boeing to stop putting profits ahead of the quality control needed to ensure their planes are safe...
The FAA regulator, though now little more than a division of Boeing, was forced to do something about the door panel after the SEC regulator muscled in on their job and recently charged Boeing 200 million for issuing misleading statements between the two MCAS crashes.
The max has been in production for 5 years and the 787 for more than 12 years...why are these quality control issues still happening on what are essentially mature airliners... Boeing shouldn't be guessing at this point
The inspectors have nothing to do with the MAX design and thus MCAS design. As such can't be blamed for it in the first place. They are on the factory floor to check the production process and if everything has been built according to specs. And that counts for all planes, not just the 737 production lines.
Boeing needs to replace Calhoun and board of directors with people who will commit to safety! Calhoun has to go down to give room for a new CEO who will straighten out and return Boeing’s old safety culture.
Boeing layd of a lot of their inspectors. But they are gone thus. You can not pick somebody from the street and name him inspector. How long will it take to train them. Airbus give the USA workers a 6 month training in Germany on the job. That gives an idea.
Why don't they farm out manufacturing to Airbus . 737s and 787s could be built in Toulouse under an agreement. It seems that BOEING employees enjoy their jobs so much they want to build the same aircraft twice.
Building parts for Airbus after Boeing did the R&D on many composite pieces; 787/A350. Boeing and Spirit engineers please correct me. I hardly believe there isn’t a sort of NDA for composite construction.
Yeah, nope. From everything that we've heard, including numerous testimonies from Boeing employees, it's painfully obvious that while 3rd party shadow factories do contribute to the problem, the quality of work being done at Boeing itself is no better. The work culture, with active discouragement of voicing out dissatisfaction with the quality of the product and a heavy emphasis on cutting costs and cutting corners wherever possible is where the issue starts. This was evident when they actively lied about the non-requirement of training for pilots on their new products (737 max) which actually killed people. Everything else is a consequence. Don't give these profit hungry rats an excuse to weasel out of.
So the new idea of the pencil pushers is: lets get rid of those problematic planes asap and hope they don’t fall out of the sky. After all, by now the pilots know that they have to be vigilant and do our quality control. Problem solved!
No the quality control solution is to sack the entire board and ask their executives, preferably sending to jail. Put engineers and only engineers in charge of the company.
How are these idiots going to increase productions when their product is so shoddy??? The entire board of directors must be canned and put in jail ASAP.
US gov intervention is needed for Boeing, because it can't handle its own quality control situation. Quality control represents the needs and priorities of the customer, not the other way around. Boeing has out of greed lost sight of this fact. Alternately, if Boeing can't resolve its own problematic issues, then gov nationalization is one of few viable solutions.
Anyone who is too stupid to organize production in such a way that a decent product comes out in the end just has to make improvements. Done right now has always been better. The sad thing is that innocent people had to pay for this sloppiness with their lives.
To fix Boeing, perhaps they could hire engineers from Toyota to teach them how to do it correctly the first time. . .and fire the MacDoug board and CEO.
So, their solution to quality control issues is to close down the so called "shadow factories" that exist to solve the quality control issue? That is actually stupid. If you have qualirt control issues, the LAST thing you will do is close down the reworking and re-checking. FIRST, you need to fix the factory issues that are releasing crap products that need to be inspected and reworked in the first place!
That's glaringly obvious to anyone but Boeing management. You can take a wild guess about where quality control and problem-solving is going to have to be done...
I'm a big Boeing fan. Love their planes. That being said, it is rather embarrassing the number of major issues Boeing has had in the last 5 years. It’s time for them to make quality and safety job one throughout the company and its subcontractors. Promotions should be based on competency and experience, not filling artificial quotas.
Problems at Boeing didn't start 5 years ago. They started 25 years ago when McDonnell Douglas took over the management of the company after the merger. What we see now is the result of 25 years of destruction of Boeing's past heritage by their incapable CEO's
It's not so much production as quality control and assurance they need to sort out. Those guys job is to discover and correct mistakes. If they can't do that, then what are they doing?
Speaking about closing shadow factories and preparing for production ram-up is pure share holder rhetorics. I heared nothing so far from Boeing that would give the slightest hope for restoring the lost trust. Neither have fundamental changes (in management, philosophy, quality control and how to deal with the outsourced core business) been announced let alone started to begin to implement. Boeing is doing business as usual, as nothing happened. That's NOT what passengers and the airlines expecting. As long as eveything stays the same, I'm not going if it is a Boeing.
This is what happens when you have " bean counters " running a company that don't know the difference between. a hammer and a screw driver. Yes - yes - we need to make the quarterly report numbers to make the Wall St crowd happy ! Just sacrifice safety for profits and everything will be ok - until the next time !
I'm no airplane building guy but doesn't make more sense to build the airplane right the first than paying to rebuild again? Maybe if Boeing used more mechanics in the build process than engineers their planes would be properly build the first time round.
Boeing quality control is a casualty of having to deal with overpaid, under-skilled union labor in the US, where labor unions have far too much political leverage. This is history repeating itself: The disaster that was Detroit in the 1970s.
Boeing does have systemic safety and quality issues. More importantly, the management team at Boeing is just horrible. When you have an aircraft mechanic with 30-40 years of airline experience vs a Pepsi truck driver manager who have clueless airplane understanding out at the line, you are bound to have a lot of issues. The other problem is managers discretion is used a lot at Boeing is damaging ethics and safety. The #1 problem at Boeing is the refusal to pay touch labor mechanics the right wage have lead to a lost of experience and replaced 50% of your touch labor workforce with delinquents and juveniles. You have industrial engineers with paper degrees telling what a job hour takes is outright ridiculous and jobs have no torques on fasteners and location is a daily occurrence. IE ARE THE MOST USELESS MANPOWER AND SHOULD BE FIRED.
I think it will be good for all planemakers, not just Boeing, to slow down production to a number where they can assure that their finished products are free of defects. With the huge backlogs that are out there, workers are more than likely being overworked, and as such, mistakes are bound to happen. It would also be naive to assume that only Boeing has quality escapes. Boeing may be the ones currently being closely scrutinized, but I can almost guarantee that Airbus' day in the hot seat will come if they keep promising such high volumes of aircraft deliveries. The more pressure these workers are under, the more mistakes are likely to happen.
Because Boeing is incompetent doesn't mean the aircraft industry is. And no, only because others have some issues too it doesn't mean that it would be comparable. It's not even close. For example, only one aeroplane company has been charged for criminal conspiracy. You simply can't compare that. Put off your patriotic blinders. 😉
@@pmfx65 I bet you know nothing about failed landing gears on the A320neo, right? Google it. I don't blame you... what's happening to Boeing is caused by Boeing. Now every time I see something in the news, even if it's got nothing to do with Boeing, all they talk about is Boeing. That's what the news is all about now. Sensationalism.
@@pmfx65Google landing gear failure on A320neo. It's happened more than once, but do you see anybody vlogging about it? Of course not. People are only interested in Boeing issues, so Airbus can keep flying under the radar with their own issues.
So incompetence and lies are like a spreading disease? I think it's obvious to anyone that if a company wants to build more planes it will need to hire more people and apply the same safety and quality checks to the surplus quantity that they manufacture. What is obvious is that it's only Boeing that wants to ramp up production of even more incompetently manufactured and crappier planes just to make more money that they desperately need. That they need shadow factories to correct incompetence and that it takes more time to do it than manufacture the product itself should have answered Boeing itself where their problem is. They just want to shut down these lines so that they can deliver more aircraft because that's when the money flows in. Now you just have to wonder is if by then any aircraft coming out of their factories is competently manufactured and safe. I already know the answer. But trying to shift problems to Airbus is delicious... 😂😂🤣🤣We're just morons, but we'll be happy if the other guys will be too. New Boeing's motto?
Especially closing the ones in Low class south carolina which is equivalent to a third world country. Boing should have been smart enough to know this.i intentionally misspelled boing, and will do it forever now on, right along with boycotting boing aircraft forever now on.
Boeing is the perfect example of how bad things can get when you leave it to the bean counters to control a company that relies on engineered products. If it's a Boeing. I sure as hell won't be going.
The fact that Boeing even needs these “shadow factories” so it can second-guess its own workmanship, is troubling in itself. Nobody is safe.
not only that I still cant figure out exactly what these "shadow factories"do. But the obvious simple solution is somethings Wall Street whores like Calhoun will not do, and that's simply slow down the main production line a bit for more comprehensive inspections before delivery to the next step. Do they really need to crank out one and a half 737s every day? How about 30 per month again - like when before the QC problems started [-800] and let Spirit do their own QC again.
Take it from someone who works in a manufacturing environment: if you're ever in a position where you need a "shadow factory", y'all need to shut the place down and decide if its worth it to keep going. The fact they kept and entire rework line going for any period of time is just beyond crazy.
@@RubyMonkey530 That's why I am questioning exactly what is a "shadow factory?" If we're not talking about metrology and NDT, then what the hell are they doing exactly?
@@gendaminoru3195Boeing used to manufacture most of the aircraft structure themselves. Then they decided to split the manufacturing part of the company into a separate business which is now Spirit Aerospace. The idea was that Spirit would be responsible for supplying components to Boeing that meet the standards required by Boeing, on the schedule required by Boeing and at the price Boeing decided. Spirit also somehow needed to make a profit for themselves as well.
Spirit was shipping components to Boeing without quality control checks being done or knowing there were flaws. They were focused on keeping the schedule above all else because that is what Boeing wanted. That resulted in teams from suppliers traveling with the faulty components to Boeing and trying to correct the issues with the components while other assembly processes were taking place.
I distinctly remember a Boeing executive complaining that the assembly line was backed up because people were manually correcting improper rivet installation on every rivet on aircraft when he thought it was safe enough to fly until the aircraft was taken apart for inspection after several years of operation.
The processes and the disregard for quality standards would be unacceptable to build Ikea furniture. The culture at Boeing is criminal.
@@gendaminoru3195 my guess is major rework/repair of assembled planes or fixing components. Spirit Areospace supposedly sent staff from Kansas to Washington state to perform "warranty repairs" on 737 fuselages. How 'bout you send in spec product like a normal, functioning supplier.
Sounds like they are more concerned with pushing out aircraft than doing the job right.
That would be correct...if you put "fanboyism" aside, airbus is dominating with its a320 family...only problem airbus a320 has (and therefore shifting a ton of orders to Boeing)? They take forever to assemble a plane...
Boeing 737 max had sold loads of units due to discounts and to be quicker at fullfilling orders...as simples as that...
@@jpazinhoonly problem with that argument is that it’s wrong. Boeing were getting 31-33 737s out of the door in 2023, whilst airbus managed a steady 48/month.
Airbus is ramping up production to 75 a month, while the FAA has banned Boeing from increasing production rates. By the end of 2024 Airbus will be producing 2 A320s for every 737 Boeing makes.
Airbus spends money on proper QC, but still out produces Boeing.
Boeings problem is 1. Poorly trained staff, 2. Poor management, 3. No investment in QC, 4. They fired most of their critical QC staff whilst 5. Retaining QC staff that accepted to turn a blind eye to their incompetence.
Boeing are only quicker to get aeroplanes out of the door because of the lack of time spent on QC and the much shorter production backlog.
@@drjojo4624 that would be correct...if you ignore the fact that the airbus backlog is bigger than Boeing's (particularly on the a320 and the a350 - I've kept myself to orders of planes actually flying)
In short, if you need to a buy plane...airbus queue is bigger - you know you will have to wait longer for that plane...
@@jpazinho
You seem to forget that Boeing has a limit to how many 737 MAX airplanes they are allowed to produce every month. This limit has been enforced by FAA because Boeing can build them fast but they come out with all sort of quality issues.
Airbus is steadily producing more A320 family aircraft every month than Boeing simply because Airbus do not have any limit to how many airplanes they are allowed to produce simply because they produce their airplanes without the kind of quality issues that are experienced at Boeing.
Being able to build more is worthless if you cannot build more with no quality issues.
It's better to produce a little bit less and make sure that the products you produce are perfect than produce more when the products being put out are full of faults.
The problem Boeing is facing is simply the difference in American and European business culture. In American business culture, only share prices matter while in European business culture, quality and reputation matter.
@@TheChiefEng again...a lot of words but your still missing my point - Boeing fullfills orders faster as it has a signifcantly smaller backlog...for an airline (say ryanair) is better to place an order for planes having 4000 ahead of yours at a pace of 38 delivered per month, than it is to place an order for planes having 7200 ahead of yours at a pace of 45 delivered per month...
This reminds me of the US auto industry in the 80s, it was more important to keep the line moving and getting cars out the door, then they would fix them after.
The US auto industry did not take the Japanese series when they started selling cars in the US in the 60s and 70s.
This American Life’s podcast on Nummi is a great listen.
It kept on going that way through the 2000s. My father worked for General Motors and he would tell me how they always stressed to keep the line moving. Some people would make mistakes and let the quality guys deal with it (though I'm sure it was missed a few times). They really didn't want anyone pressing the button to stop the line unless something was completely botched.
The US auto industry in the 1980s didn't have a racism problem like Boeing does. They need to go back to hiring people based on merit rather than skin color and pronouns.
@@dmhendricks you seem uneducated and uninformed.
TBH it sounds to me like there's a significant fraction of Boeing management that doesn't understand anything about anything.
"We've saved a huge amount of money on production by out-sourcing. I don't understand why we are having to spend so much money fixing problems with what our contractors deliver. Can anybody explain that to me? ... tumbleweed ...."
The problem started when Boeing decided it was going to cut costs by moving everything out of Renton, whether by moving production to non-union supporting states or outsourcing production of parts.
What the hell does being union have to do with production quality.. NOTHING , DIDDLE AND SQUAT.. if anything being union would actually decrease quality.. just look a Toyota.. the problem Boeing has is processes.. when your secondary contractors are more concerned with hiring DEI employees then qualified humans, the unions are moreover concerned about keep the union dues rolling in
@@thomasburke7995 What exactly should I look at Toyota? Unions doesn't fabricate test results, management does.
they still make the 737 in Renton and Everett, wa
Feb 2019 via Seattle times
But in December a Boeing system called Process Monitoring revealed a breakdown in quality. In one job category, an internal audit found only 93 percent of tasks were done correctly, short of the required 95 percent.
The specific category of work that fell short of even the 95 percent requirement is called “Bond and Ground,” which means ensuring that all the components in the airplane are electrically grounded and that the connections or bonds between the components provide a continuous grounded electrical pathway through the metal airframe.
Nope, from where I stand the issue with Boeing is systemic cutting of quality control staff, procedures and ignoring safe concerns for greater profit. Just look at the NTSB request on the documentation on the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout. Boeing has no record of the door work! 🤦♂
Do they have no record or are they pretending they don't have it?
It's better to say "oops we lost it" than to show it and prove that the work is indeed sub standard
@@osasunaitorIf there's no record it means that automatically the worst is assumed.
In every regular business having records is always better than having none. Because that means a full blown investigation and very likely removal of certification and license. Having to reapply, if even possible.
Not sure if this clown and monkey show has anything to do with regular business however.
@@osasunaitor Uhh, objection sir! To say, as you state it, " oops we lost it" , both ways are just showing that you do not have your act together. And it shows very very clear that you either never read your job Manual, aka jobdescription, or you are willingly incompetent for whatever the reason may be. As an Ex jet engine mechanic i can only tell you ,if you dont follow the rules and orders de minutiae , you are allready in deep deep shit, and if you go like " oops i lost it", whatever it may be you lost , you're pretty shure ,pretty fast out of Business! Permanently! So i just wonder how Boing ever was allowed to run as losely as it has been very obviously the case here. This has a real foul smell to it. And how comes , there is no NTSB Agents in the shop , the Minute NTSB got wind of such shemes , closing down the entire operation, sacking everybody , who even scarcely has to do with Maintenance, threatening everybody with for life imprisonment, may it be a mere lineguy or a Ceo , and toothpicking the place like a Marinedrillseargent during hoochinspection. That would be, to my simple understanding , the only right and correct solution!
Both MCAS and the door plug problems originated at Boeing. Spirit aero system might not be much better. But the problem is still with Boeing
The Dreamliner also had quality issues with tools and trash left behind from the production line. There was a threat to refuse aircraft from the SC plant not long ago.
The bean counter still want to increase profit
Well, in 10-20 years, the biggest commercial airplane makers could be Airbus, Comac and Boeing in that order.
Boeing needs to sort out their problems. Maybe, they should start with replacing their entire senior management and move their headquarters back to where it belongs.
With a high end product like an airliner, a company can only win with a superb quality control process.
It doesn’t even need to be superb.
Maybe if the workers wouldn’t fly on the plane, they shouldn’t push it out the door to customers.
WTF is wrong with these MBA people 🤬
May 6, 2019 via usaToday: Boeing is pushing ahead on a plan to cut about 900 inspectors, replacing their jobs with technology improvements at its Seattle area factories, despite being under fire for software flaws in the 737 Max and quality issues in its other aircraft.
Shadow factory: where the 787 originated from (Everett, WA, USA).
The root cause was original production being pulled from Everett and moved to Charleston, SC to save money on production and not to pay union wages.
When corporate culture is infected with the greed virus, it becomes very difficult to cure their board of that problem. Boeing has embarrassed itself repeatedly since the "merger" (hostile takeover) by McDonnell Douglass by abandoning its "engineering first" philosophy to its "greed first" suicide plan. Engineering helped Boeing become a leading aviation legend. Greed has led Boeing to one disaster after another.
The excuse is old
@@benwilson6145 The excuse has gone extinct. This became a self-sabotaging "business model" that has erased years of earned respect and thoughtful innovation that made Boeing a powerhouse in commercial aviation. I miss the old, creative Boeing. Today's Boeing can't get out of its own way. Until enlightened management steps back in, we are likely to witness a continued spate of easily preventable errors that undermine public confidence in their aircraft.
Repositioning manpower to “new production” seems like the exact opposite of what Boeing needs and it certainly doesn’t sound like a solution. More of a consequence of the 787 faults being remedied.
They should probably be taking that manpower, re-educating them into quality control or positioning them in a way that actually remedies the mistakes on the 737, while they happen.
Latam Air had a 787 incidental sudden drop in altitude just a couple days ago.
Turns out, a switch on the back of the pilot's seat was faulty and moved the seat forward, pitching the nose down, overcoming the autopilot, and injuring dozens of passengers and crew.
kinda hard to believe that has never happened before with more than 1100 of them delivered, the instrument panel also went blank
Nothing will be fixed until they go back to quality over profit instead of vice versa
And as said in the end, the paradox thing is, that this doesn’t even benefit them financially. 6:00 they put more hours into the planes in the shadow factory’s than in the normal production. If they would put in more effort/ hours into really building and checking the plane in the first place, they wouldn’t have to spend so much on the shadow factory’s. But hey that’s the thing with cost cutting in this sector, you will only benefit from it in the short run…
The MD merger was a mistake
One of the main reasons Boeing diverted manufacturing to suppliers or subsidiaries was to replace union labor with lower cost workers. Why does not the media report on the relationship between unions and quality control?
Absolute banger!
Can't get over the quality and stabilisation, its just perfect!🤩
It seems insane that a company would produce aircraft as fast as possible, only to spend the same amount of time fixing mistakes. Build it right, first time, every time. And you'll never need a 'shadow' or cock up fixing factory...
When the Boeing headquarters was in the same state problem were much easier to address and literally brought to the front door of executives.
Some might agree that the reason they left is because the executive bean counters got tired of arguing with the people that actually design and build the airplanes.
Well, maybe if Boeing had engineers running the company ,like they used to,instead of bean counters and those concerned about meeting schedules as well as shareholder value,things would be different.
But will they learn this time ?
Nope.
It's highly doubtful that the clowns and monkeys part at Boeing changed substantially.
They can't even get airplane redesigns certified right now. Not even going to mention a new design.
And essentially in which way 4 missing bolts on an old design are different from a clean sheet design with 4 missing bolts?
@@jantjarks7946 "And essentially in which way 4 missing bolts on an old design are different from a clean sheet design with 4 missing bolts?"
Spot on.
I fear not, because of American Greed and Stupidity. If making money however the way , is more important than other peoples life and wellfare, and no one in Management is either able or willing to take the responsibility and is even getting through with this attitude, there will practically be zero change! So we will going on to see more spectacular / dangerous bullshit by Boing. The only way to change anything at Boing , would be, to sack each and every managerial Position, threaten those guys with imprisonment for live , and even get more then 10 of those people inprisoned , and no lowtier lineguy , just people from on high Management, and i believe that would sent the rest of those bullshitters either flying or they step in line like a Marine battalion during morning Parade.
The military has a description that perfectly suites Boeing. The first word is Cluster and the second starts with F. You couldn't pay me to step on a Max and I am questioning the build quality of all Boeing jets. I don't play games with my safety. Russian roulette is not a game I play at any time. Until they remove McDonnell Douglas mentality, where money is more important than safety and paying lawsuits is cheaper than fixing the product. I wont fly on Boeing products.
add a second F in Boeing case right now...
cluster F Factory...
They couldn't even get a Boeing exec on the MAX recertification flight.
As you can see, you are not alone with it.
😊
6:32 - "No longer necessary" or simply "no longer done" ?
I really hope Boeings quality control improves
Me too
Is going to improve as much it improved McDonnell Douglas
QC costs money, that means less profit = lower executive bonuses and shareholder dividends
It’s not going to happen. Ever.
@@drjojo4624 yeah and Boeing only cares about money these days and never on safety but it’s clear that they are tying to change that
Quality and boeing should not be used in the same sentence.
One of the toughest jobs in aviation is that of QA & Safety Auditor. Part of that are Internal Audits which are intended to find faults in systems & procedures & assure they are corrected. What we have at Boeing is a complete failure of Management to implement a standardized quality assurance program at every subcontractor. The culture of safety that set Aviation apart from other industries seems to have been lost at Boeing.
With all the outsourcing and subcontracting both BOEING & FAA have lost ALL-CONTROL over these areas. Neither BOEING nor FAA have the personnel for effective oversight.
Both are culpable of Corporate Manslaughter! Companies MUST listen to and act on their employees suggestions to be both profitable and successful. Thank GOD for persons like: Ed Pierson / John Barnett / Joshua Dean / Sam Salephour and others, for standing up for safety!
Retired TCCA Safety Inspector Maintenance.
Of the 88 tests they officially failed 33, we can assume it was higher but that would put peoples retirement plans in jeopardy becusse of all the stock loss.
Is the Shadow Factory closing down because things aren’t being screwed up anymore or is it because we are ignoring the mistakes? The latter seems more likely. Boeing needs to slow the F down and focus on building it right from the start. That Shadow factory should live on as a quality inspection operation until they sort out their production issues.
It appears that most of the quality non-conformance issues with the 787 relate to the fact that it is being built in their SC plant. Approx. 15 years ago when Boeing was lured into SC with all kind of financial incentives, they quickly found out that there was non existent local pool of qualified workers, and, they had to train thousands of locals in the highly complex technical disciplines necessary for building quality aircraft. The problem of quality, and QC has been lingering ever since.
Duh. Imagine building parts at spririt once, sending parts to boeing, who then fix it once, then after assembly notice more problems to fix it thrice.
Assemble and disassemble anything 3 times and see if its quality is as equal to having just done it right the 1st time.
No wonder bolts are missing or tools/trasy wre being left inside aircraft
I'm wondering when they will ammend part 187 and pay fees for FAA Certification and Oversight since other businisses or confronted with rising compliancy costs?
For instance ESH, GHG, LCA's and Carbon Footprint, Supply Chain... etc.
How many FAA officers are now daily involved in Boeing? 300-400? So 45M$/yr. at min.?
The question is are those planes that have lose bolts, missing washers, and the door plug blow out from the shadow factory or if that are the planes that are considered good and not needed to go through the shadow factory. If they are from the shadow factory, then yes they should shut it down as it's not fixing the production mistakes anyways. If they are not, then they should double down on the shadow factory and make every plane go through a second pass in the shadow factory.
Never enough time to do it right the first time, plenty of time for rework.
I hate rework and always let my crew know that.
The bolts were removed from the 737 at the Boeing facility in Renton.
Shadow factories are another way of saying that the 737 and 787 lines are broken.
Somehow i don't think it's gonna be a quick fix........
The big question is, will the FAA and congress have the ability to overcome regulatory capture and force Boeing to stop putting profits ahead of the quality control needed to ensure their planes are safe...
The FAA regulator, though now little more than a division of Boeing, was forced to do something about the door panel after the SEC regulator muscled in on their job and recently charged Boeing 200 million for issuing misleading statements between the two MCAS crashes.
The solution is quite simple: Boeing should actually give a damn on what they make and not just give lip service from top management. Deeds not words.
If true, this is unbelievable
The max has been in production for 5 years and the 787 for more than 12 years...why are these quality control issues still happening on what are essentially mature airliners... Boeing shouldn't be guessing at this point
900 inspectors were laid off after 346 people died. We are just seeing the results of such actions.
@@jantjarks7946 holy cow...but those inspectors were employed and possibly signed off on those 737 max that crashed right
The inspectors have nothing to do with the MAX design and thus MCAS design. As such can't be blamed for it in the first place.
They are on the factory floor to check the production process and if everything has been built according to specs. And that counts for all planes, not just the 737 production lines.
@@jantjarks7946 the problems are more complex than I thought...I hope they get their act together competition drives innovation
And now a Whistleblower from Boeing giving evidence against them in a lawsuit turns up dead is that fishy or what.
Boeing needs to replace Calhoun and board of directors with people who will commit to safety! Calhoun has to go down to give room for a new CEO who will straighten out and return Boeing’s old safety culture.
There is never enough time to do it right, but there is always enough time to do it over. That's because unapologetic Calhoun is a Bean counter.
Boeing layd of a lot of their inspectors. But they are gone thus. You can not pick somebody from the street and name him inspector. How long will it take to train them. Airbus give the USA workers a 6 month training in Germany on the job. That gives an idea.
Why don't they farm out manufacturing to Airbus . 737s and 787s could be built in Toulouse under an agreement. It seems that BOEING employees enjoy their jobs so much they want to build the same aircraft twice.
You do know that spirit also builds parts for Airbus....
Building parts for Airbus after Boeing did the R&D on many composite pieces;
787/A350. Boeing and Spirit engineers please correct me. I hardly believe there isn’t a sort of NDA for composite construction.
They need to remove the entire board of Boeing and out engineers back in charge. This simply cannot continue to happen.
Yeah, nope. From everything that we've heard, including numerous testimonies from Boeing employees, it's painfully obvious that while 3rd party shadow factories do contribute to the problem, the quality of work being done at Boeing itself is no better.
The work culture, with active discouragement of voicing out dissatisfaction with the quality of the product and a heavy emphasis on cutting costs and cutting corners wherever possible is where the issue starts. This was evident when they actively lied about the non-requirement of training for pilots on their new products (737 max) which actually killed people. Everything else is a consequence.
Don't give these profit hungry rats an excuse to weasel out of.
So the new idea of the pencil pushers is:
lets get rid of those problematic planes asap and hope they don’t fall out of the sky. After all, by now the pilots know that they have to be vigilant and do our quality control. Problem solved!
No the quality control solution is to sack the entire board and ask their executives, preferably sending to jail.
Put engineers and only engineers in charge of the company.
How are these idiots going to increase productions when their product is so shoddy??? The entire board of directors must be canned and put in jail ASAP.
Boeing issues are not getting pass by their quality personnel. the personnel is being silenced
US gov intervention is needed for Boeing, because it can't handle its own quality control situation. Quality control represents the needs and priorities of the customer, not the other way around. Boeing has out of greed lost sight of this fact. Alternately, if Boeing can't resolve its own problematic issues, then gov nationalization is one of few viable solutions.
The Alaska Airlines is a company very Cold.. it's a cold company
??? did not all these incidents occur at Renton
this plane is 56 years old. why is the ceo not gone for allowing this drop in quality?
If you are loosing money with the Shadow Factoryies, start hiring a ton of new employee's. You might as well spend the money for the good.
They can't, they have to buy back shares.
Anyone who is too stupid to organize production in such a way that a decent product comes out in the end just has to make improvements.
Done right now has always been better. The sad thing is that innocent people had to pay for this sloppiness with their lives.
Why do they even have these?!?!
Profit first and fat bonuses for CEo's and shareholders
To fix Boeing, perhaps they could hire engineers from Toyota to teach them how to do it correctly the first time. . .and fire the MacDoug board and CEO.
This is not a handset, outsourcing beyond Mitsubishi is a risk not worth taking. The HQ needs to come back to WA state from VA
So, their solution to quality control issues is to close down the so called "shadow factories" that exist to solve the quality control issue? That is actually stupid. If you have qualirt control issues, the LAST thing you will do is close down the reworking and re-checking. FIRST, you need to fix the factory issues that are releasing crap products that need to be inspected and reworked in the first place!
That's glaringly obvious to anyone but Boeing management. You can take a wild guess about where quality control and problem-solving is going to have to be done...
Wow over 50 aircraft required rework because quality control is so bad. Just how bad are the worst that come in?
I'm a big Boeing fan. Love their planes. That being said, it is rather embarrassing the number of major issues Boeing has had in the last 5 years.
It’s time for them to make quality and safety job one throughout the company and its subcontractors.
Promotions should be based on competency and experience, not filling artificial quotas.
Problems at Boeing didn't start 5 years ago. They started 25 years ago when McDonnell Douglas took over the management of the company after the merger. What we see now is the result of 25 years of destruction of Boeing's past heritage by their incapable CEO's
Maybe they should delegate manufacturing to Airbus? Then they would only be left with the design issues.
A VERY POOR EXCUSE THAT AFFECTS PEOPLES LIVES !!! SO SAD THEY CAN'T DO THINGS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!! POOR POOR EXCUSE FOR STUPIDITY!!! UNREAL
Abracadabra. Look- it’s gone.
It's not so much production as quality control and assurance they need to sort out. Those guys job is to discover and correct mistakes. If they can't do that, then what are they doing?
Wow Boeing need step up
At the factory where I worked it was called "Garbage Factory" . This emphasizes how much they are useless and money consumers.
✈️
THe result of the investation is already obvious: Nominal extra government oversight, and a large cash bailout with taxpayers money to Boeing.
Boeing has been going down the rabbithole recently, they focus too much production and money, and not passenger safety.
WOW 797 confiemed??? 4:17
lol that’s programming the 787
Lol, no.
They can't even get redesigns certified right now. How do they want to get a completely new design done then?
Missing engineers are missing.
Speaking about closing shadow factories and preparing for production ram-up is pure share holder rhetorics. I heared nothing so far from Boeing that would give the slightest hope for restoring the lost trust. Neither have fundamental changes (in management, philosophy, quality control and how to deal with the outsourced core business) been announced let alone started to begin to implement. Boeing is doing business as usual, as nothing happened. That's NOT what passengers and the airlines expecting. As long as eveything stays the same, I'm not going if it is a Boeing.
The identity of the airline was never disclosed......
Spicejet plane flying below.. 😂😂
If it's a new/modern Boeing, I'm *NOT* going.
Boeing lost the plot…they don’t operate zero defects procedures!
This is what happens when you have " bean counters " running a company that don't know the difference between. a hammer and a screw driver. Yes - yes - we need to make the quarterly report numbers to make the Wall St crowd happy ! Just sacrifice safety for profits and everything will be ok - until the next time !
What qualities as long they look and make tonnes of profits is ok. Only other countries make tofu planes but we make harder tofu planes.
I'm no airplane building guy but doesn't make more sense to build the airplane right the first than paying to rebuild again? Maybe if Boeing used more mechanics in the build process than engineers their planes would be properly build the first time round.
These QC issues will lead to the downfall of the Boeing dynasty, and AirBus will certainly take advantage of Boeing's mistakes.
Boeing is creeping towards.... FUBAR.
STAY OFF BOEING PLANES!!!!
Made a few hours too early
Who trusts Boeing Commercial nowadays?
If it's Boeing I ain't going. Boeing has lost, in my opinion, all credibility.
Phone Zombies
The solution is to go back to hiring people based on merit rather than skin color and pronouns.
Ridiculous statement. Do some research.
China style.
Boeing quality control is a casualty of having to deal with overpaid, under-skilled union labor in the US, where labor unions have far too much political leverage. This is history repeating itself: The disaster that was Detroit in the 1970s.
Boeing does have systemic safety and quality issues. More importantly, the management team at Boeing is just horrible. When you have an aircraft mechanic with 30-40 years of airline experience vs a Pepsi truck driver manager who have clueless airplane understanding out at the line, you are bound to have a lot of issues. The other problem is managers discretion is used a lot at Boeing is damaging ethics and safety.
The #1 problem at Boeing is the refusal to pay touch labor mechanics the right wage have lead to a lost of experience and replaced 50% of your touch labor workforce with delinquents and juveniles. You have industrial engineers with paper degrees telling what a job hour takes is outright ridiculous and jobs have no torques on fasteners and location is a daily occurrence. IE ARE THE MOST USELESS MANPOWER AND SHOULD BE FIRED.
I think it will be good for all planemakers, not just Boeing, to slow down production to a number where they can assure that their finished products are free of defects.
With the huge backlogs that are out there, workers are more than likely being overworked, and as such, mistakes are bound to happen.
It would also be naive to assume that only Boeing has quality escapes. Boeing may be the ones currently being closely scrutinized, but I can almost guarantee that Airbus' day in the hot seat will come if they keep promising such high volumes of aircraft deliveries. The more pressure these workers are under, the more mistakes are likely to happen.
How many doors have popped out of Airbus planes?
Because Boeing is incompetent doesn't mean the aircraft industry is.
And no, only because others have some issues too it doesn't mean that it would be comparable. It's not even close.
For example, only one aeroplane company has been charged for criminal conspiracy. You simply can't compare that.
Put off your patriotic blinders.
😉
@@pmfx65 I bet you know nothing about failed landing gears on the A320neo, right? Google it.
I don't blame you... what's happening to Boeing is caused by Boeing. Now every time I see something in the news, even if it's got nothing to do with Boeing, all they talk about is Boeing. That's what the news is all about now. Sensationalism.
@@pmfx65Google landing gear failure on A320neo. It's happened more than once, but do you see anybody vlogging about it? Of course not. People are only interested in Boeing issues, so Airbus can keep flying under the radar with their own issues.
So incompetence and lies are like a spreading disease?
I think it's obvious to anyone that if a company wants to build more planes it will need to hire more people and apply the same safety and quality checks to the surplus quantity that they manufacture.
What is obvious is that it's only Boeing that wants to ramp up production of even more incompetently manufactured and crappier planes just to make more money that they desperately need.
That they need shadow factories to correct incompetence and that it takes more time to do it than manufacture the product itself should have answered Boeing itself where their problem is. They just want to shut down these lines so that they can deliver more aircraft because that's when the money flows in.
Now you just have to wonder is if by then any aircraft coming out of their factories is competently manufactured and safe. I already know the answer.
But trying to shift problems to Airbus is delicious... 😂😂🤣🤣We're just morons, but we'll be happy if the other guys will be too. New Boeing's motto?
Especially closing the ones in
Low class south carolina which is equivalent to a third world country. Boing should have been smart enough to know this.i intentionally misspelled boing, and will do it forever now on, right along with boycotting boing aircraft forever now on.
I live in SC & it's not 3rd world. I've visited my family in the Philippines...that's 3rd world
Boeing is the perfect example of how bad things can get when you leave it to the bean counters to control a company that relies on engineered products.
If it's a Boeing. I sure as hell won't be going.