If it’s Boeing – I’m not Going!
Stranded astronauts, troubled Starliner spacecraft lead to bruising perspective
By Jim Doxey
My intention is to share my observations and not cast stones but provide learning opportunities in hindsight. The thoughts and opinions are my own and do not reflect those of this publication or management.
This phrase (“If it’s Boeing, I’m not Going”) is unfortunately what two astronauts are saying on the International Space Station (ISS) today. Their Boeing Starliner transport which got them to the ISS, is not going to return them to planet earth. Many years ago, Boeing was known around the world for their product quality. They had a sticker then and a common phrase: “If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going.” Pilots pasted these stickers to their luggage. I heard it was a Boeing policy that employees flying on assignment for the company could change their flights if they weren’t booked on a Boeing aircraft, so they weren’t forced to fly on the competition’s plane. When I was recruited to work there, I heard that a Boeing airplane was taking off or landing every 1.5 seconds of every day. Most of the time these events were ‘non-events.’ No one heard about any incidents or accidents. The quality of these complicated products in operation was undisputable. This was a world-class company, and their aircraft set a high bar for aviation quality around the world. I will give a first-hand view of my experiences while working at Boeing and other companies during my career, and some observations of the challenges going forward.
I worked at Boeing as an engineer over 30 years ago. One of my specialties there was to try to figure out how things worked and, as a Systems Engineer, communicate this information to upper management. The Boeing Commercial Airplane Group was (and is) a massive company with many divisions and moving parts. Like most large organizations, it was a fairly slow-moving enterprise. Just figuring out the who/what/where questions took me some time. And after six years at Boeing, once I started to figure it out and offer suggestions for improvements, I found myself moving on to work at other companies in Silicon Valley where the cycle time for change was much faster.
Initially, I spent most of my time in the Fabrication Division. This division makes all the custom piece parts and wing panels. Although Boeing outsourced over 80 percent of the component parts used on their commercial airplanes, they manufactured from scratch several of the critical components and that included the structural components used on the wings. My first job at the Fabrication Division was to help with an early Generative AI project wherein we’d feed a CAD model to an expert system program and have the software automatically create the g-code used to machine the parts using rules and logic. Our GNC (Generative Numerical Control) program worked fairly well on a certain class of two dimensional (2D) outlines used to machine stringer clips; however, it wasn’t able to machine complex 2D or even simple three-dimensional shapes with the technology of that era.
I then got recruited to work on a large data management program. Data management isn’t as cool as generative AI or machining, but I felt I could add some value to this program, and it was necessary. The program we were working on ran on mainframe computers in the early ‘90s. It managed the millions of CAD files used to design the airplanes. And since the (then-new) Boeing 777 airplane program was all digital, we had plenty to do designing and building this in-house program, which was essentially a large product data management (PDM) system on the mainframe. The team supporting this program was over 150 employees, including me. It was critical to the mainframe CAD system we used on all Boeing designs at the time.
While this work was happening in the early 1990s, several Boeing executives read a book called Re-Engineering the Corporation and decided to adopt an “outsourcing” model where we would buy COTS (commercial off the shelf) software versus building our own software tools. This initiative was formalized into a program called DCAC/MRM (Define and Control Airplane Configuration / Manufacturing Resource Management). It was basically a product configurator coupled with a PLM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. This was a digitalization or modernization initiative, aiming to reduce costs and simplify our processes. We had many internally built software tools in the early 1990s running on mainframe computers, and executives believed that purchasing these software tools versus building them, as well as migrating from Mainframe computing to Unix servers and applications in 1995, would reduce costs and streamline operations.
I was asked to justify why we needed any of these tools and spent a month interviewing everyone and anyone who had something to do with a single part used on the Boeing 777. I selected a part which we designed and built in-house. It was called a double plus chord, because it looked like two plus signs stacked on top of each other and extruded over 20 feet in length. I collected all of the paper trail and built a three-ring binder about four inches thick for just that one part number. I then modeled the information/product flow in buckets and hoses. This was a first at Boeing and many saluted my efforts to make this process visible and understandable.
I learned a lot and felt like I contributed in a small way to help justify our spending over $1B on our major business process re-engineering efforts. To me it was all about people (training), processes, and tools. We had created process models to wrap around the building, and we were procuring commercial servers and software tools to do our jobs, but the part that I felt was lacking was that some of the people at Boeing (not any one in particular) hadn’t adopted a “we care” attitude about their jobs. There were a few (possibly many more than a few) that worked at Boeing for the paycheck and didn’t have their heart and souls yearning for the overall success of the company. In other words, when the time to clock-out came, they were gone and often didn’t really care even during working hours. I do not want to sound harsh, but two things stood out to me at the time:
Boeing is a large company. The prevailing attitude at this and many other large companies seems to be, “If you don’t do your job, someone else will pick up the pieces later.” Large enterprises need to keep employees engaged and streamline roles where possible to reduce the possibility for redundant work and make jobs meaningful.
Employees need to care about their jobs and company. Passion for your job is an individual matter - and some individuals did not seem to care. This was illustrated to me while I was on a lunchtime walk on the large campus of the Fab Division. As I walked past a freshly painted crosswalk with two big white stripes indicating where to cross the road, I saw that the paint crew had not bothered to remove a small rock from the area where they painted the crosswalk. I picked up this rock and kept it. I have called it my Quality Rock. (There is still probably a notch in the crosswalk paint where I picked up this rock.) You have to care before you can have quality.
SUMMARY
I still fly on Boeing aircraft - they are still one of the absolute best that mankind has built. I just hope that they can turn things around, or I may stop using them. They have a mountain to climb to earn their customer trust and become the quality standard for which they once were known. There are two customers stuck on the ISS now that are saying the opposite to this bumper sticker (If it’s Boeing, I’m not Going).
For the whole of the Boeing company, or any company concerned with quality products, everyone needs to embrace one word: CARE.
Multimillion dollar systems and re-engineering processes will not do it without the people. I have shared my quality rock stories with many people since my time at Boeing and overall product quality is more dependent on the people than any other aspect of the job.
