First fix the DEI or Boeing will DIE.
Musk
It would take a complete overhaul....ie firing a lot of the existing management and replacing them with good managers, getting rid of all the wokism and bringing back actual engineering and technical skills, etc. AND it would take doing it soon because they’ve got competitors who are eating their lunch. If the rot continues much longer it will do serious long term damage to the company financially, in market share, reputationally, etc etc.
I don’t think they’re capable of doing it.
I’ll try. I’ll need the larger office and a private bathroom. I will also need an alphabetical accordion file. Yeah, that Boeing. I’ll get them straightened out.
[pushing back the day it can resume production of most aircraft]
Hey, if it’s any of the 737 MAX series with the unbalanced Center of Gravity, that’s a GOOD thing
It was the Machinists Union that drove the final nail in the coffin of Eastern Airlines. Whoever assumes the top spot at Boeing will need to big a large meataxe.
Bankruptcy and a complete rebuild is obviously necessary. One of Boeings biggest problems is TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT. Too many regulations, too many ridiculous prerequisites for government contracts, etc.
Elon Musk
my experience with it that their space operations are hopelessly enmired in NASA CYA paperwork and needless oversight. They’d do better out of that until NASA goes by the wayside, IMO.
That will most likely require new ownership (i.e., an investor group that can force changes as opposed to a board of directors elected by public stockholders) and a new CEO (selected by that investor group) who will know what needs to be done and has the cojones to do it.
During the Future Combat System program, I spent a couple of weeks embedded at Boeing in Seattle. I could write a whole article on the things I saw that were systemic problems with the company. Skipping over that as even a short list is too long for a post, the solution would be to break Boeing apart, free it from the union and move the various parts to new locations. This would create a clean break with the systemic problems. Fixing Boeing in its current form would be like putting Band-Aids on a damn breach.
The root cause of Boeing’s current problems can be traced directly to the McDonnell Douglas merger.
Boeing took over MD, but MD’s rotten business culture took over which infected and killed Boeing.
Old Engineering Proverb…”Sometimes the only real fix to a bad design is a decent burial.”
Will they ever return to the quality management that produced the B52, 707 or 747? I suspect in that era it was not just management, but everyone from the CEO down to the guy that swept the floors. Their goal was quality and that’s what they gave. Typical Americanism of the era.
Today? Typical leftism that degrades anything and everything.
Boeing needs a time-out to gut the management team and rebuild but companies can't do that, they will be left in the dust and never catch up again. Sometimes the employees can carry a company through a crisis such as Boeing's but they are unwilling to do that.
Boeing's failure began with the move of HQ to Chicago in 1997.
"Boeing's relocation to Chicago was predicated on the professed need to buffer top management from the influence and distractions of its production plants, whose numbers were growing as the company diversified and absorbed a 1997 merger with defense contractor McDonnell Douglas."
Now they have once more moved, this time to Arlington, Virginia. Odd, I never knew that your primary business of manufacturing airplanes in a factory was a distraction. I guess that is why I am not nor ever will be a ceo. At least Ortberg decided to locate in Seattle. Ortberg is probably in over his head, he has never managed a company as big as Boeing and most of what he did in Collins was merge and sell out. Maybe that is what Boeing wants to do?
Amazing how fast they went from: "If it isn't Boeing I'm not going." to what it isn't today. I am told by pilots that Airbus makes a better product. What a shame.
Sell it to Saab.
“Can anyone fix Boeing?”
i would say no based on what i’ve read, namely that boeing pretty much doesn’t make anything themselves anymore, subbing out the construction of all major assemblies to nations around the world, many being almost 3rd world type of nations ... and on top of that, boeing wasn’t sending BOEING employees to supervise and conduct quality control during said assembly construction ... boeing wouldn’t be aware of problems until the assemblies were finally received at their assembly plants ... thus boeing has lost almost all ability to make things themselves ... i don’t really see how that can be fixed ... possibly someone like elon musk could buy boeing out of bankruptcy and pretty much start over, but even there, a quick fix would be unlikely ...
It cannot be fixed as long as preferences exist in hiring, education and promotions. As long as people are hired early in life, at less than qualifed work performance, and never required to achieve that performance within the workforce, and they can rely on preferences for every job advancement and even into management, we will have craddle to the grave unqualified people at all levels of the organizations affected by the stupidity of Race/Gender Preferences.
To fix the following is suggested as a templete for Trump’s consideration:
Trump must end race, gender and any other government programs where a person is given a job over the best qualified candidates.
Veterans Preference for military will remain. Veterans Preference will only be used once. When you are hired.
Trump will announce that all Preferences recognized and mandated by the Federal Government are null and void immediately, any application submitted but not hired by the end of 30-days, will not be valid. No Preferences will exist for any reason except those given to Veterans of the Military who complete their term of service under only Honorable Conditoins.
Verterans Preference (VP) will not be used for a second federal job application.
VP will not be used for consideration at time of Promotion, or for jobs with a linked in promotion upon hiring, e.g., positions that given discressionary 6 month, 1 year, followed by 1 year (etc.) applications. Applications using VP will only get a job at the level of entry with no linked follow on promotions or elevation in duties.
VP applications must meet minimum job requirements other applications were required to possess and perform daily not less than one year after hiring, or appointment is canceled and failure to met program requirements of rising to the level of competence will result in termination with no further benefits or liens against the USG.
No Preference can be used for consideration for positions in Management Positions, only entry level supervised positions.
Any person hired on a Preference will be required to be competent to compete for future promotion.
No. It cannot be fixed. Not even Max the Miracle Worker can fix it.
This assumes Boeing is broken. Boeing is exactly what its owners want it to be - an apparatus used to get money from U.S. taxpayers.
C’mon, man.
They said they wanted to destroy the US.
What part of that is so hard to understand?
The article headline is rather naive, considering that the effects of progressive policies were all predictable.