Breaking news today after the month-long strike of the Boeing Factory workers is that Boeing will be laying off 10% of their workforce soon in an effort to conserve cash. This impacts approximately 17,000 workers across the board. This was caused in part by the 32,000 factory workers who are currently off the job, on a strike, which started on September 13, 2024. For a good quantity of the Boeing employees – they’re now saying that they’re not going to work! This article isn’t about trying to take sides or cause consternation, although there must be a lot of it in the Seattle area and wherever Boeing employees are working (or not working). What I’d like to discuss are some of the business fundamentals I’ve learned and how Boeing, or any other large manufacturing concern, can address these in light of the current events. 

Background

About 30 years ago I was a senior systems engineer at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group. There were about 100,000 employees across all divisions of Boeing at the time. Part of my job was to try to figure out and help improve business processes and their associated IT systems for engineering and manufacturing. Boeing commercial aircraft and their business processes came into sharp focus earlier this year when a door plug unexpectedly separated mid-flight from a recently delivered Alaska Airlines 737 on January 5, 2024. After a lot of finger-pointing, it was determined that four bolts that should have been holding the door plug onto the fuselage were never installed. The aircraft had made several flights without mishap previously, but on this occasion the door fell off in flight and it was nearly a catastrophe for the passengers onboard. Luckily no one lost their life during this event, but today it seems that Boeing as a company may be facing some existential threats.

Alan when he was on the board of Directors of Google in spoke there in 2015. The author worked at Google then, and is wearing the shirt given him by Alan and the entire Boeing 777 team in 1994.

I’d like to share my viewpoint on how we may have gotten here.

Fundamental 1: All for One and One for All

It is easy to cast blame on several factors related to Boeing’s ‘challenges’. I don’t think they’re going to go out of business because it is a huge enterprise and the cost of tooling and ramping up another competitor to Boeing is very steep. Yet, they undoubtedly have issues and their dirty laundry is flailing in the breeze for all to see. The IAM union (which I never joined when I was there because I was a “white collar” type of worker and this union is for the blue collar folks for lack of better description) has had a few challenges of their own over the past 30 years. They’ve typically been the union with the ‘most teeth’ and most feared by the executives because they shut down production – the life blood of the company – when they go on strike. The IAM hasn’t had the best outcomes for their members in the past 10 to 20 years with a few strikes over the past few decades. The engineering union (SPEEA) went on strike once since I left the company and I think it lasted about two to three months before they worked it out with the company, but it simply doesn’t have the same ‘teeth’ of a factory worker strike that the IAM represents. 

There’s another twist to this current strike. The newly appointed CEO of Boeing has only been in the job for around two months, and he was brought in to ‘turn things around.’ I’m sure he didn’t plan on the current state of affairs when he signed on for the job. To have quality issues and no current production of their main aircraft is a monumental thing to turn around. He put his proverbial foot down earlier this week. A one-month long strike is still in effect because the union negotiators and the company negotiators aren’t ‘getting along’ or even communicating. The Boeing Company rescinded their ‘best and final offer.’ This isn’t a good sign. Hopefully they’ll find a quick resolution, and everyone can work things out for the best. If Boeing goes out of business or becomes one half of the size of the current company (for whatever reason) this isn’t a good thing for the U.S. economy and their worldwide supply chain. To quote Rodney King after the riots in L.A., “Can’t we all just get along?”

I certainly hope so and that the company, union and employees can figure this out soon!

Fundamental 2: Automation is Inevitable

On October 1, 2024, another union called a strike. The longshoreman’s union of 45,000 dock workers walked off the job in the eastern seaboard of the United States. The strike only lasted three days but had a huge potential impact on the economy. It seems that the ‘strike worked’ in that the members were promised better pay and benefits to end the strike. However, one of the key points of the Union’s demands was to limit the potential automation which the ports could deploy to reduce the number jobs required for humans (union workers) to perform. Time will tell, but what I’ve heard is that the ports in Asia are highly automated (80%) and can perform at a high level with fewer humans, while the ports in the U.S. are only about 20% automated in comparison. If the world is becoming flatter by the day with global communications, automation and transportation allowing for a very distributed supply chain, how can the U.S. ports fall behind technologically and still keep up with their rivals across the ocean? It may be hard for any company or union or employee to acknowledge the sea changes caused by automation and embrace change. I’m not saying to automate for automation sake at the expense of human jobs. I am saying to recognize the overall business conditions and to create the environment for humans to learn and develop the skills to keep your factory or port or whatever at a world-class level. Change happens. Striking won’t prevent it. On October 10th, Elon Musk’s demo of the Robotaxi evidently didn’t go over that well to investors, but he did show a glimpse of the future. I believe this glimpse should indicate to manual taxi drivers a need to learn some new skills that will catapult them into the future versus being stuck in the past as automation continues to evolve.

Alan and the author in 2024.

Fundamental 3: Process Engineering is Key

While I worked at Boeing, I learned a few key principles. One was to keep your mouth shut (which I haven’t done that well since leaving the company) and another was to offer suggestions only when called upon. When offering suggestions, it helps to have built up some credibility with the executives or be related to someone higher up.

I had neither of these things going for me – or so I thought. For some reason I was selected to help with a major corporatewide ‘re-engineering’ program. This project initially was to re-engineer the business processes and systems required to design, build and support Boeing commercial airplanes. It started out as an elite group of 30 employees, which grew rapidly into an ‘elite group’ of 300, then an entire division of 1,300 people all trying to do this big initiative which was to redesign everything. Our mandate was:

Radically Rethink and Fundamentally Simplify the Boeing Design/Build Processes.

This group became known as the DCAC/MRM program. DCAC stands for Define and Control Airplane Configuration and MRM is Manufacturing Resource Management. In simple terms we were to figure out how to define, buy and implement a PLM and ERP commercial off the shelf (COTS) system software. We did have a number of legacy systems running on the mainframe computer. We had something like 13 Bill of Materials tools… and none of these ‘talked’ with the other division’s tools. We needed to update our systems and processes and the IT folks wanted to migrate off the mainframes onto UNIX servers.

We didn’t have a lot of professional IT or business systems analysts on the team in comparison to the manufacturing personnel. We bought Visio software for a number of manufacturing engineers, and we created paper charts or business process flows which could wrap around the building a few times. This still didn’t get us the new implemented toolsets. We had to go through about 18 months of churn to identify, vet, and select the COTS tools, and then get ready for a go-live. I left before the go-live and went to work on some newer technology in Silicon Valley, but what I’ve heard is that the new systems never lived up to the hype. Some people snarkily called it “DCACa”. We probably spent over $1B on this digital transformation (over a 2+ year period) but this is about the same amount that Boeing is losing per month as the strike lingers on.

Knowing what you’re wanting to automate by defining the processes is fundamental. Don’t pave over the cow-trails. You probably need to build a superhighway, but if you can’t afford it right now, perhaps you can lay out a clear path and do the best you can with the tools you can muster.

During this time I attended a symposium sponsored by Boeing featuring Watts Humphrey, the founder of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon. He was amazing. My big takeaway from his talk over 30 years ago was his two famous proverb quotes:

1.    If you don’t know where you are, a map won’t help.

2.    If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do.

Find your metrics – then chart your course - and your quality of operations should improve.

Fundamental 4: Human Engineering

The best determinant for success is your people. Find, hire and retain the very best folks you can. It is a shame to have to lose people due to challenges with work, downsizing due to financial constraints and/or strikes. You need to figure out a way to get through to the other side of these sea changes, without throwing too many folks overboard or getting swept off course. One of the best managers I’ve ever met for getting people to work together is Alan Mulally. Alan was second in command for the Boeing 777 program when I worked in that division in the early 1990s. He’s a trained aerospace engineer from Kansas with great human (i.e., humane) skills as kid growing up in the middle of the country with good principles. He knows how to engage people and get the most out of them as a motivator. He rose to the top of Boeing, but then was called to lead the Ford Motor Company as their CEO after leaving Boeing. He is one of a kind and had a special way of dealing with people on a human level – not as a ‘number’ or just an employee, but as a partner in developing the vision for the company and the future. He was the only CEO of the automotive companies who didn’t ask for any ‘bail-out’ money from the U.S. government when the economy collapsed in the late 2000s. He had seen the future and had mortgaged everything Ford had prior to the collapse to build up a war chest large enough to turn the company around. I heard him speak several times – most recently earlier this year. He’s now retired and rarely speaks, but in meeting him in person he was just as genuine and magnetic as anyone I’ve worked for. He’s inspired many as a leader in business and industry.

He met with and had to negotiate with unions, leaders, and others throughout his career. He said that several times he had laid out the vision of the future in his role as CEO or executive and asked his managers to support this change. He would say, if you don’t support this, or just say you support this without you personally changing, you’ve got a choice to make. Go home and think about it and talk with your loved ones about what this change will require of you. Then come back to me tomorrow and we’ll discuss your future. If you’re onboard, truly onboard with the change then great, but if not, we’ll still love you but you’ve got to move on. It is your choice. (Alan was great at delivering this speech and getting everyone onboard, not through authoritarian leadership, but through love and persuasion). He knows how to engineer the humans and take a close interest in them and make things happen to get people to work together for a common goal.

The name of the very first Boeing 777 airplane was: Working Together.

It was painted on the livery of the aircraft and everyone on the team felt like they were part of something special.

Summary

Learning sound business fundamentals will improve your quality of operations. Quality in and of itself can’t happen without considering the bigger picture and getting everyone onboard. Learning from others (both good and bad) can influence your path forward. I hope one day we can get back to the familiar saying: If it’s not Boeing, I’m not going… but for now, I hope for this industry giant they can get everyone back to ‘Working Together.’

READ MORE

• If It's Boeing - I'm Not Going!
• Miracles and Expectations
• FAA Halts Boeing Expansion; Sets Inspection, Maintenance Requirements