Boeing: Business As Usual?

What sort of thing makes the Nattering One smile and laugh his ass off?  For one thing... whenever we hear or see evidence of the corporate buzzwords: company vision, mission statement, core values, brand or culture.  All of which set off big red flags and sirens viz there's something inherently wrong if you have to promote this kind of group think, speak or cult-ism.  

The latter in particular when being interviewed or listening to corporate honcho and group speak... the proud mention of their corporate "culture".  Culture? Cult? You don't say! Hmm... 

Do these "cultured" people refer to the noun: the attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group?  Or the verb in a biological sense: maintain bacteria in conditions suitable for growth?  Or both?  And what exactly does said corporate "culture" tend to, cultivate, incubate, breed or beget? Case in point, tonight's "cultured" offering submitted for your "cultural" perusal...

It takes a certain level of technical expertise to understand how the toxicity of a financial derivative poses dangers to an economic system; but everybody instinctively understands the tragic impact of a plane crash, like the doomed Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines 737-related accidents. - Salon

So what is going on with Boeing's Starliner? 

Doug Loverro, the head of human exploration for NASA, said the discovery of widespread issues with the Starliner software indicated “we have a real breakdown of the software process. We don’t know how many software errors we have — if we have just two or many hundreds."  

Speaking in unusually blunt language, NASA officials also acknowledged that the space agency had failed to properly police Boeing’s work and that the checks that were supposed to discover such problems failed repeatedly. 

No astronauts were aboard the Starliner capsule during its test flight in December, but the software malfunctions could have caused what a safety official called a “catastrophic spacecraft failure...  they said there were multiple failures along the way that, if not caught in the nick of time, could have led to a disastrous outcome." 

There seem's to be a theme as it's not just the Starliner?

 [Loverro also] said he could not speak to what, if any, connection there might be between the Starliner’s software problems and the issues with the 737 Max.  

- NASA finds ‘fundamental’ software problems in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft - WaPo

Do these issues run deeper than faulty process?

It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors. 

Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace.   

- Boeing’s 737 Max Software Outsourced to $9-an-Hour Engineers - Bloomberg

From a whistle-blower report, it appears that management and its "culture", knew of serious safety and process problems caused by cultural issues, and misrepresented the facts?  Say what?

"Boeing management was “squeezing the engineering budget for new programs … more concerned with cost and schedule than safety and quality.  When CEO Muilenburg and others state that the Max was a safe airplane as designed, they seriously misrepresent what Boeing Engineering has learned about how data and control functions should be treated"   

As if being a culture or cult of... less than forthcoming, mismanaging cheap skates was not bad enough, we have what could be considered obfuscation, avoidance and omission in the commission of felony murder?

[Boeing] management — determined to keep down costs for airline customers — had blocked significant safety improvements during the jet’s development... one of the proposed systems could have potentially prevented the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people. 

- Boeing whistleblower: 737 safety improvement nixed over cost- Heraldnet

And this culture is pernicious and pervasive?

This is not unique to aerospace. We have the same issues with American “champions” in every  critical industry. Consider the oligopolistic credit rating and monopolistic credit software businesses. Consider the GFC. - Ann Rutledge

The Nattering One muses... To our friends salient GFC point, the "culturally engendered" points made above are synonymous with almost every single major government agency, major corporation and both Experian - Equifax suffering hacking incidents leading to data breaches. Coincidence?

This is what happens when one attempts to commoditize information technology, infrastructure, support, engineering and coding for critical systems.  Said "culture" includes national security and major industry, by outsourcing to labor at the margin. viz. H1B visa imports, onshore coding houses or overseas so called centers of "excellence".

At the core? A low cost at all costs culture, at its finest.  This short sighted, perverse culture and mindset is more concerned with cost, schedule, profit and bonus. Separate design from manufacturing? Divorce engineering from R and D? Offshore and outsource? We can save millions? Sounds smashing. There are no coincidences, you get what you pay for and you can pay me now, or pay later...

at $9 an hour which with additional process checks (oft faulty), supervision (more oft inexperienced and inadequate) and the repetitive errors produced equates to $80.  Such a deal, when one could have paid the domestic engineers they laid off $40, and the job would have been done proper in the first place. DOH???  This comes to mind...

 

More to come in IBM: Fumbling In The Extreme? Stay tuned, no flippin.

Recommended Cultural Reading:
How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
Packed in the 737 fiasco are all the economic problems we face
The Architects Of Their Own Demise?
Follow The Money?