When it comes to safety culture at Boeing, there is a “disconnect” between senior management and workers, and employees responsible for checking the company’s planes question whether they can raise issues without fear of retaliation, according to a panel of outside experts.
The aviation-industry and government experts also said safety training and procedures at Boeing are constantly changing, leading to confusion among employees.
The comments were contained in a report Monday to the Federal Aviation Administration. Congress ordered the study in 2020, when it passed legislation to reform how the FAA certifies new planes after two deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jetliners.
Safety at Boeing is being re-examined after last month’s blowout of an emergency door panel on an Alaska Airlines Max jet. Accident investigators said in a preliminary report that bolts used to help hold the panel in place were missing after the plane underwent repairs at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington.
…has made changes that have reduced the chance of retaliation against employees who report safety problems…
There should be ZERO chances of retaliation. Reporting safety problem should be rewarded. and not just safety problems, any non-conformity must be properly documented and acted on.
This isn’t even just a job standpoint. Retaliation in general can be illegal (well…depending. I know that gets messy) but in an industry like this? holy fuck that should not just be a lawsuit or some shit. That should be straight up fucking jailtime.
This is a huge thing at hospitals. You need a just culture where employees have the psychological safety to report issues otherwise people die.
I mean yeah but when you have 50,000 employees there’s like 20,000 of them in a management position.
Roles and responsibilities. People who’s role is to report non conformities should not be managed by people who 's role is to deliver on time. That’s a conflict of interest. That goes all the way up the chain of command. Manufacturing and quality are meant to be independant.
Yes absolutely. That should winnow down the number of people responsible for the culture a bit.
But you also have people reporting to Operations (not quality) who will discover defects. And then they either need to feel empowered to inform quality or their manager.
Independent quality function does not completely solve the culture problem. In fsct, I’d bet their quality organization is independent.
My friend is an engineer at Boeing and she has had a hell of a time lately due to all the extra work coming through. She’s still being pushed to move forward even if the planes aren’t ready, and the executive team is blaming the engineers. It’s fucking wild.
My wife has been with Boeing for about 16 years. She works in finance though. Still, I hear from her constantly about how ass backwards everything they do is. I’m convinced the company is going to be broken up and sold off in pieces one of these days.
Entire management team needs to be removed and revamped. Still will take a long time to regain trust.
As a society I feel we are over managed and over administered. Colleges, hospitals, and companies have dozens of highly paid executives and administrators who add little value and do even less work.
The primary problem is that centralized decision making is necessary, but the type of people who seek out those positions tend to be power hungry and make changes to establish their authority instead of making decisions based on what is actually best for the organization.
I don’t think decision making needs to be nearly as centralized as it is. David Graeber wrote - I think in Bullshit Jobs but maybe something else - about a nursing company in the Netherlands where it’s broken into democratic work groups. They have low overhead and high patient and worker satisfaction.
By putting the decision making closer to the work I think you get better decisions.
Edit: I looked it up and it was Rutger Bregman in “Humankind”
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” Douglas Adams
Quality and safety will always be at odds with the bottom line.
This is the real disconnect. As long as executives’ pay are related to profits or stock prices, they will never make safety the #1 priority.
In Boeing’s case that’s probably the reality of the last couple decades. The beancounters have gotten in the way of Safety.
Brought to you by McDonnell Douglas.
I flew in an exit row on a 737 last week. I kinda want to get a shirt made commemorating my survival.
Make it look like a roller coaster and have it say “I survived THE MAX”
The neat part is that if Airbus starts having safety problems there’s exactly zero other competition.
Embraer? For the smaller types of airliners at least
Owned by Boeing
COMAC, but there would be no way a new manufacturer would be able to keep up with global demand.
https://skift.com/2024/02/25/can-chinas-new-plane-compete-with-airbus-and-boeing/
Airbus doesn’t have the safety issues Boeing has. Airbus put in the proper R&D including safety into the A320neo to make it a safe plane. Boeing needed to play catch up to make something that could compete against Airbus’s plane and decided to cut corners.
