Changes at Boeing

I briefly saw on the evening news that the CEO is out and changes are being made at the top level. Don't have the details yet.

 

Muilenburg is out as Chairman of the Board but retains his position as CEO. Still some rumbling where it will hopefully do some good.

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-ceo-dennis-muilenburg-stripped-chairman-role-737-max-crash-2019-10?IR=T

Rgds

 

Surprised they left him as CEO. One last try, I guess.

 

All they are doing is playing musical chairs with job titles in order to give the illusion of action.

 

No clearly stated objective.

 

Boeing is in serious trouble, they can play musical chairs all they like. It wont stop the multi-billion dollar lawsuits they face.

 

The lawsuits are the least of it.
Tarnished reputation on multiple levels from product integrity to management malaise. Add to that a deflating product lineup. The 737 is dead, they just may not realize it yet, or want to. They will have sales because there is only one other alternaitve and Airbus has a big backlog so theres no short term alternativer, but its a delfating balloon for the 737 series.

Boeing needs a new family of aircraft to fill the 737 space, and the longer they take the harder will be the hit to their long term marketshare. Theres also the question after the 787 debacle s to how effectively Boeing(management) can develop a new aircraft. Probably Embrader has the chops to do it though.

Meanwhile Ill bet the suits at Boeing are wondering if they just rename the 737 whether they can get away with the easy option.

Amongst other things Boeing lacks vision.

 

I'd just call the Max variants the 737-10 and 737-11 and leave it at that.

I would have begun designing the new aircraft at the same time as the Max, to eventually replace it. I would have suggested a 2-2-2 seat layout in coach (requiring a slightly wider fuselage), and I understand that was under consideration. I wonder if, in fact, they've been working on such a design in the last few years.

 

Some years back Boeing was designing the 737 replacement but the efficiency improvement for their clients (airlines) was insufficient to what was achievable by the Max, especially considering the price increase in the aircraft the new version would require. Maybe this will change now but if the articulating main landing gear for the -10 works that may solve their engine positioning issue that drove the MCAS creation.

As for the idea of 2-2-2 seating that will make the aircraft at least 15" wider with no capacity improvement but a lot of efficiency losses - weight and aerodynamic drag.

 

Kevin McAllister was fired last week, too. He was head of Boeing Commercial. Probably not the last head that will roll.

 

In more news: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/us-flight-attendants-challenge-boeing-refuse-to-walk-on-to-737-max-planes/ar-AAJIySU?ocid=spartanntp

 

The flight attendants want a role in the evaluation, really? Sure sounds like a severe case of grandstanding by the ignorant.

 

In my opinion they will never make a 2-2-2 configuration. It will take about 17 seconds for airline management to figure out if they make it 4-3 they can get an extra 35 -45 seats in it. Boeing might have a design concept for 2-2-2 but no airline would order them that way.

 

I disagree.

This is a lot like the BP oil spill. A public relations nightmare. For a while.

But both BP and BA will outlast the news cycles.

I’m betting heavily on it.

Matt

 

Some others seem to be surprised, too. ALthough the question is: "if not him, then who?"

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/03/boeing-737-max-crashes-draw-lawmawker-calls-for-ceos-resignation-wall-street-says-not-so-fast.html

Rgds

 

I'm betting the opposite. It will take Boeing years to recover.

 

You're literally shorting BA?

Matt

 

Not yet. But its a good short...…….

 

I made some decent money on BP. I think that this will be similar. Or so I’m betting.

I don’t think it’s going to get much lower.

Matt

 

A good article about the Boeing situation, and how it got this way:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/

 

I have about 6000 words on paper about the "Boeing problem" and how dismayed we all were when the Douglas Disease took hold. Not to paraphrase anything but my thoughts about the downward slide of the company started with Condit and his naive conduct with the Douglas gang, The move of the company's headquarters to Chicago was stupid, and as I said earlier, it separated the head from the body. Stonecipher , MacDonald , and many other Douglas infiltrators installed a culture of cutting costs without doing anything to keep the company operating as an engineering firm. I was working in PD at the time and every damn thing that we did to produce an airplane was shot down as "Not having a business case." So many productive things were eliminated and cancelled and so many things that promoted cohesiveness were destroyed. The company was no longer Boeing. When I was on the line as a mechanic or illustrator in the 50's and 60's everything we did was INSPECTED and the job didn't move until it was "sold". The entire plant was that way. Engineering ruled the operation and nothing moved ahead without engineering approving its own design work. Nothing was completed until they were satisfied that it was the best that they could produce. And again, everything was inspected on down the line and if something wasn't right, they redid it before it moved ahead. I was appalled when I heard that the "experts" in Chicago wanted to eliminate the inspectors and let the mechanics inspect their own work. Obviously whoever thought that one up had never been on the production line. Well, Chicago is a long way from Seattle. I blame the board of directors for the bad choices of CEO's and for passing over Mulally and I wish that they could bring him back and flush the Douglas crap out of the system and set up a team from the top down like he did with the 777. I suppose that I could be getting myself into trouble by spilling my spleen but I had to say something. I have to add my experiences when I was on a recruiting trip in 1962. When we entered the hotel where we were staying and I announced that we were from Boeing, the staff sprung into action and all the doors were opened with much bowing and scraping. The word "Boeing" was respected and we were treated as special people and the staff couldn't do enough quickly enough to keep us happy. I wonder how it is now.

 

Bob, I like to read all of your inputs but I feel compelled to take exceptions to “Douglas disease,” “Douglas crap,” “Douglas gang” when really it was McDonnell or in all actuality General Electric (Stonecipher, McNerney). Granted, I come from the Missile and Space side of Douglas, but I would bet that there is not really a difference in the engineering side between Boeing or Douglas back in the ‘60s. In So. Cal., as programs changed, engineers would rotate between North American, Lockheed, Northrop and Douglas and during that time...engineers were engineers. Like Boeing, Douglas was an engineering company. Design Engineers were not just in the office but on the floor and at our major subcontractors making sure, along with inspectors, that the product would be per spec. When McDonnell took over, philosophy changed somewhat. Even when we became McDonnell Douglas, it was still an engineering company. That all changed with Stonecipher. All of a sudden, MBAs took over.

In the mid ‘90s, Boeing wanted to diversify. Boeing had cash flow, but little profit on airplanes, and bought North American Rockwell for satellites and merged with McDonnell Douglas for military aircraft, missiles and launch vehicles. Like you, I thought Mulally would take over but I assume that the Board probably thought he was to specialized. Also like you, we were surprised that corporate offices moved to Chicago. Word was Chicago was more centrally located to all of Boeing divisions. I think there was another reason for the move and also for another assembly plant in the U.S. What we couldn’t understand was just when Airbus was on the ropes when they had A380 problems and airlines were starting to jump to Boeing, the two major unions decided to strike. One of your earlier write ups inspired me look up why and I found there was a faction in Seattle that takes credit in organizing engineering.

in general, the new management philosophy at Boeing was, “if you were a manager, you could manage anything.” As a result of all of these changes, the 787 startup, and now it seems the 737 MAX, were disastrous. All of the Standard Practices Boeing used previously were thrown out the window. We, Boeing, finally figured out the only people that care about Boeing business model,are...Boeing people, not suppliers. On the 787 Program, from what I have read, Boeing finally put engineers back out in the field at suppliers, etc. The 787 has been successful so far.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/how-boeing-lost-its-bearings/602188/?utm_term=2019-11-20T16:23:13&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_campaign=atlantic-ideas&fbclid=IwAR1OmXrD09VK-dP8e7kviJISDTxcSoXz6q2fz4oidaTtABK0qT2ep-w0-s0

By Jerry Useem in "The Atlantic"...

Moving to Chicago...

McDonnell Douglas 'bought' Boeing, using Boeing's money....