Boeing has secretly and very effectively been digging a deep hole for itself. Well, now it is not so secret but that is how these things tend to go.

We know that what we are seeing is not the problem, they are some of the results caused by the problem. The results we see are the low quality control of the final product. The problem is systemic. There has been a change to the operation of the company (the system of systems) that has decreased the quality of the product

The total ‘system’ is a combination of the company manufacturing engineering, manufacturing, quality control processes and all of the human actions and interactions that occur in the implementation of those processes.

It may be that the manufacturing engineering process has changed so it is purposefully no longer instructing manufacturing not to install critical hardware, but this is unlikely.

It may be that manufacturing system has changed so that they are purposefully not following the instructions from manufacturing engineering, but this is unlikely.

It may be that the quality system has changed so that they are purposefully not inspecting critical areas. Although this is also unlikely.

Whatever the cause, the system of systems has failed and it would be great to know why.

Boeing has put forward a “Product safety and quality plan” which describes how they are going to improve the quality of their products.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/227ed543-2dc6-4739-af6d-62eabe062131.pdf

This document appears to contain no results of a root cause analysis and no reflection as to what has caused the degradation in company performance and why it happened. However there were some pleasing anodyne word salads, this is one of my favorites:

Page 10:

Safety culture. Boeing is undertaking actions to deepen leadership and employee alignment to a positive safety culture, conduct improved safety culture assessments, and enhance safety reporting mechanisms. Fundamentally, these actions focus on simplifying employee guidance and ensuring employees understand their part in Boeing’s safety culture, no matter their job role.

The whole document is basically a ‘Don’t worry guys – we’ve got this!’ with a total absence of self reflection or any analysis of the root cause.

This is not unusual in modern corporate culture and is a demonstration of the evasion of responsibility that is antithetical to aircraft development and manufacture.

Boeing have passed their peak and look like they will not be returning. Unless they wake up, the future is an easy downhill path of least resistance.