MIT article - What Boeing’s Door-Plug Debacle Says About the Future of Aviation

[CNCAppsJames]

I think some of in here would find this article interesting. We for the most part have "engineering" mindsets and kind of understand complex processes.

Some noteworthy quotes;

Failures in modern jetliners are extremely uncommon events in general, but even in this context, the failure looks unusual and concerning.

The rate of airliner accidents attributable to technological failure implies that their critical systems have mean-times-to-failure not of 10,000 hours, and not even of 100,000 hours, but north of a billion hours.

We should always hesitate to draw large conclusions from small samples, but a failure this ordinary lends credence to increasingly pervasive accounts of Boeing as a company that has gradually lost its way; its culture and priorities increasingly dominated by MBAs rather than the engineers of old.[/u] Especially when that failure is seen in conjunction with the 2019 737-MAX disasters, which were also rooted in avoidable design shortcomings, and the "Starliner" space capsule's ongoing troubles.

And the money shot - emphasis mine;

This is probably the failure's real significance: The underlying shift in institutional culture that it represents. Boeing will surely remedy any specific problem with missing or unsecured bolts; it would be truly incredible if that mistake was ever made again. The fact that the mistake was made at all, however, suggests an organization that is decreasingly inclined, or able, to make the kinds of costly, counterintuitive, and difficult-to-justify choices on which it built its exemplary history of reliability. These choices always pertain to marginal, almost negligible, concerns — simply because reliability at high altitudes is all about the margins — so their consequences manifest slowly. But their effects are cumulative and inexorable. A company that is not securing its bolts correctly is unlikely to be making the kinds of strategic decisions that pay dividends in decades to come.

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/what-boeings-door-plug-debacle-says-about-the-future-of-aviation-safety/

[YoDoug]

It's not just Boeing, it's the problem with corporate America. Too many MBA's to keep critical work at the worker level from being done. I know of a machine tool dist. that has tried multiple times to start and automation division and lost money every time. Their MO is create a division, add a President, directors, managers, etc. Then maybe a few engineers/service techs. They make it so top heavy that it can't succeed. Corporate culture says you need and MBA to get into any kind of upper management and the lion's share of compensation is distributed at the top. This makes people put promotion and politics above the well being of the company. Likewise in my career I have worked for a few companies that had the upper level management and execs bonuses tied so heavily to profit that as soon as there was a slight down turn in sales they start to cut back on everything they can (labor, projects, expansion, etc.) to keep a profit. It keeps their end of the year bonus but shrinks the company a little bit every year.

[beej]

We should always hesitate to draw large conclusions from small samples, but a failure this ordinary lends credence to increasingly pervasive accounts of Boeing as a company that has gradually lost its way; its culture and priorities increasingly dominated by MBAs rather than the engineers of old.[/u] Especially when that failure is seen in conjunction with the 2019 737-MAX disasters, which were also rooted in avoidable design shortcomings, and the "Starliner" space capsule's ongoing troubles.

There is always a tension between "book smarts" and real life experience. I really think that both are necessary for growth. The problem comes when companies prioritize one over the other. Which is what this article seems, to me, to be saying is going on at Boeing and other places. I've seen it at some of our customers, where they let go of a lot of their homegrown talent that started at the bottom and worked their way up to the top, to be replaced by college grads that have book smarts but are afraid to make a decision, or are convinced that something they read in a book will work not realizing the circumstances that causes their solution not to work in this particular case.

At the same time, we have a couple of customers who have completely promoted from within, and some of the things that they think are real head scratchers. And I always think, "If they would bring in somebody from outside the company with a fresh perspective it would sure do them some good."

My personal feeling is that if you promote someone who seems to have a lot of aptitude and work ethic from within, who has gained real world experience and send them to school to learn the "book smarts" you can have the best of both worlds.

[CNCAppsJames]

There is always a tension between "book smarts" and real life experience. I really think that both are necessary for growth.
...
My personal feeling is that if you promote someone who seems to have a lot of aptitude and work ethic from within, who has gained real world experience and send them to school to learn the "book smarts" you can have the best of both worlds.

That "tension" is a critical component in manufacturing design. It NEEDS to be there IMHO. It's how technology/innovation moves forward.

There needs to be the old salty engineer that is willing to move forward putting up some resistance to the inexperienced young buck. Not to the point where the buck is broken, but moving forward just enough to keep the buck motivated but not so much that the move forward is reckless.

That last sentence was my career track when I was a Cummins Engine Company... my first manufacturing job in the metal trades. That track laid the foundation for a pretty awesome career trajectory so far.

[CNCAppsJames]

It's not just Boeing, it's the problem with corporate America. ...create a division, add a President, directors, managers, etc. Then maybe a few engineers/service techs. They make it so top heavy that it can't succeed....

I'd counter that it's not just Corporate "America"... it's a disease that infects businesses the world over. Here in the US the disease REALLY took hold when Jack Welch took the reigns at GE in the 80's. They were looked at as a model organization that could do not wrong. And by a number of metrics that was a correct assessment. However, those assessments began to be made based on quarter to quarter tactical thinking instead of decade to decade strategic thinking. In terms of strategic thinking, GE's thinking (or Jack Welch in particular) has been a abject failure for the US as a whole. It was during his reign where the MBA's started running roughshod over proven long term growth strategies in favor of outsourcing, offshoring, support of NAFTA type treaties, etc...

JM2CFWIW

[beej]

That "tension" is a critical component in manufacturing design. It NEEDS to be there IMHO. It's how technology/innovation moves forward.

There needs to be the old salty engineer that is willing to move forward putting up some resistance to the inexperienced young buck. Not to the point where the buck is broken, but moving forward just enough to keep the buck motivated but not so much that the move forward is reckless.

That last sentence was my career track when I was a Cummins Engine Company... my first manufacturing job in the metal trades. That track laid the foundation for a pretty awesome career trajectory so far.

When I first got into the trade, CNC's had been around for a while, but they were just starting to be used in family owned mold shops in our area. The mold shops would get some of the more tech savvy mold makers to run them, and they would fight and battle to figure out what to do with them or even how they benefited a shop that only made one-offs of everything. I was the first person they had hired who had been book-trained on them in a trade school. Those mold makers taught me a TON about feeds and speeds, what mattered and what didn't in a mold and things like that. But I also realized quickly that they ideas about CNC that I could only describe as superstition. They would at some point make some mistake or something like that, they couldn't figure out and they would come to some conclusion that really made no sense when you think about it, as to why it happened. We learned a lot from each other. But there was also tension lots of times, when one of us thought we knew better than the other.