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Boeing Adds More Surprise Quality Checks in Its Factories (msn.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the better-late-than-never dept.
Boeing is conducting more surprise inspections at its factories as part of a broader plan to prevent manufacturing snafus like the one that led to a jet-panel blowout on an Alaska Air flight a year ago. From a report: The jet maker outlined on Friday more than a dozen steps it has taken in recent months to tackle a manufacturing quality crisis that has forced Boeing to slow production and has put it under the microscope of federal regulators. Some of the steps have been previously reported.

Boeing restarted production at its 737 factory in December after a machinists strike stopped work for several months. The company is still producing far fewer 737 MAXs per month than it was in the months before the Alaska Airlines accident. Among the new procedures are another layer of random quality checks where plane parts are commonly removed and then put back. In the case of the MAX involved in last January's incident, workers failed to replace bolts needed to hold a door-plug in place. The plug had been opened to repair faulty rivets.

Boeing Adds More Surprise Quality Checks in Its Factories More | Reply

Boeing Adds More Surprise Quality Checks in Its Factories

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  • Where oversight goes to die (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pimpy ( 143938 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @11:05AM (#65059619)

    Boeing investigating itself is about as useful as Boeing rubber-stamping its own processes and planes, where if any of those had been up to snuff, their would be no need for investigations in the first place. Anything other than a complete audit by an independent third-party with zero interference from Boeing is a joke.

    • It is more nuanced than that.

      The inspection itself is fine, and welcome. But it has everything to do with what is done both during and after the inspections.

      Among the failures at all levels that Boeing has had, some include that problems on the floor aren't reported, others are that problems on the floor are reported but are ignored, still others are that problems that were reported were investigated and dropped. Done well, surprise inspections can look at what is happening, ask questions, and address is

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I've yet to meet a high-quality, skilled engineer who balks at yet another round of review, as long as they get paid for the time.

        Matches my experience as IT and IT Security auditor. Those that generally do well welcome the additional pair of eyes and the feedback. Those in opposition usually have something to hide and know it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Boeing investigating itself is about as useful as Boeing rubber-stamping its own processes and planes, where if any of those had been up to snuff, their would be no need for investigations in the first place. Anything other than a complete audit by an independent third-party with zero interference from Boeing is a joke.

      I think this is more like "Surprise, quality... check".

      We know the FAA under Trump is going to be as useful as a chocolate teapot, hopefully the EASA and CAA can collectively grow a pair before anyone else gets hurt.

  • There's an old manufacturing saying.. (Score:3)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @11:12AM (#65059637)
    "You can't inspect in quality"

    It has to be part of the design and the attitude of the workers.

    • Add this one "take bean counters out of "management & put the Engineers back in.

    • If I understand the whole Boeing story, the staff was taking quality very serious. But that attitude was soooooooo outdated according to management.

    • Or more generally: Quality is a process, not outcome.

      It's a well known axiom in all quality-oriented industries.

      And even in software, there is the old saying: As soon as you introduce a benchmark for the metric, the metric becomes meaningless.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        In sociology it's called Campbell's law:

        The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.

    • Quality is an extremely complex subject that unfortunately isn't a focus of most engineering schools. It consists of two primary parts:
      1. A design that meets the customer's requirements
      2. Manufacturing to the design.
      It seems Boeing wants to measure step 2. However, it's what they do with that information that is critical. There are people spouting off "Campbell's Law!" claiming this information is useless, which is ridiculous.

      It's important to accept that humans will make mistakes. Blaming individu

    • "You can't inspect in quality".

      I'll slightly disagree with this. If you have a management which understands quality and which knows that things are going wrong with quality then inspections can be a good tool to inspect out non-quality. That's not the same thing - the quality still needs to be developed by the people doing the jobs - but it is absolutely crucial for protecting the people who are actually doing quality from unfair competition from the people who are refusing to do it.

      There would be two things that you'd look for as a sign

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. This is just some smoke and mirrors. They have committed mass-murder twice now, came close a 3rd time, might just have done the 4th time (or not) and will continue to kill people until stopped. The occasional whistleblower included.

  • The headline makes it sound like quality _is_ the surprise. :-)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aitikin ( 909209 )

      They're called, "Quality Checks." How do you get, "Surprise Quality," not, "Surprise Quality Checks," from that headline?

      • Given Boeing's recent track record, how could you not consider quality to be a surprise? ;-)

      • They're called, "Quality Checks." How do you get, "Surprise Quality," not, "Surprise Quality Checks," from that headline?

        It's "humorous", not "humerus", therefore liberties are allowed.

        Even beyond that, people sometimes "check for surprises" - and virtually nobody would misunderstand you if you said that finding quality at Boeing is a surprise.

  • The memes [knowyourmeme.com] write themselves.

    I can see The Onion bringing in a "QA Mofo" to go alongside Herbert Kornfield from Accounts Receivable [google.com].

  • Random quality checks caused a major problem? I know, add more!

  • Leave it to Boeing to make up their own quality circus show. This will cause more problems than it prevents.
    This is a bonehead management solution that shows the least amount of commitment and the most amount of business as usual.

    • ... the least amount of commitment and the most amount of business as usual.

      Thanks for that! I had this mental picture of someone weighing the former in one hand and the latter in the other, and literally falling over on the 'usual' side.

  • Surprise! It's the management that's the problem and this won't solve a damn thing. They had a culture of not caring, taking shortcuts, and trying to make their stock price go up at any cost. People like that need to be removed from the company. Also, they really should stop murdering whistleblowers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Also, they really should stop murdering whistleblowers.

      What are a few whistleblowers after you have committed mass-murder for profit several times...

  • The idea of Boeing launching "surprise" quality checks makes me think of a bunch of clowns jumping out of a box and yelling, "SURPRISE!" throwing streamers around and dancing as they scream inspection at the top of their lungs. That company is a clown show top to bottom now. I can't help but laugh at the idea of them improving themselves with "surprise" quality checks, if their routine quality checks have brought them to where they are now.

  • They should be conducting inspections continuously. QA should be a standard part of their engineering process. They killed their QA to increase their stock price. They are only doing surprise inspections to make it look like they are doing something for investors.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. There is no way to catch things like the door-plug with "surprise inspections". The only thing that will do it is constant QA, i.e. better processes and better people.

      I think the assholes that made this decision should be up for criminally negligent man-slaughter in 500 cases (or so), sentence to be served consecutively.

  • ... until conditions improve.

    This faffing about trying to convince the public Boeing is safe does not solve the issue with management who decide to game the system to sell more planes at the cost of people's lives.

    A cultural change is needed, not theatrics.

  • Start with the workers: Tell them quality actually is important, and if there's something going on (an aging machine making a strange noise, a calibration they think might be off, a part that just gives them a bad feeling) they need to stop work immediately and look into it or stop and call a supervisor. Then the machines. Do a thorough inspection of the machines by qualified personnel and gauges, and the schedule be damned. Then the supervisors. Tell them that quality actually is important, and a higher p

    • Quality means little if the workers are not paid enough to care. If you're paying comparable fast food wages then I should care about quality because...?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        A Boeing assembler makes twice what a McDonald's line worker makes, and with much, much better benefits. Apparently Boeing pays roughly what other aerospace companies do, including Airbus, but with very different results. It's not that pay isn't a parameter, but complaints about pay often arise in situations where pay is competitive, but working conditions are bad. I think this is because pay is easier to quantify than things like respect.

        You could double everyone's pay, but it won't fix asking people to

  • email from CEO: "OK gentlemen, there's going to be a surprise inspection on Wednesday, make sure your departments are ready for it!"

    I've seen that before. Surprise Inspections only work if nobody tips them off. I've seen both tip-offs, and regularly scheduled "surprise inspections". (how do you even call it a "surprise" when it happens every other month on the 2nd Tuesday?)

  • Surprise inspections have their place; most commonly if you are a regulator or certifying body that is relatively thinly resourced relative to the number of outfits you need to cover; and your inspections are more about determining whose paperwork is probably true-ish vs. who is a lying bastard who cuts corners when they think that nobody is looking. It's the approach of someone who is basically disconnected from the operation and needs some information on the people they are getting reports from. Which is

  • ... with the door plug is that it was out of sequence work.

    When I used to work there, the planned QA processes had been streamlined and cleaned up pretty well. Following some threats from the FAA (suspension of manufacturing certification, etc.) we managed to build a process that got the correct engineering paperwork to the shop floor in seconds rather than hours.

    But getting an engineer down onto the shop floor in person in the event of a problem (like reworking rivets around a door plug) was like pulling

  • Well, gee, that means something I guess but shouldn't there be full time quality inspections of representative samples at all plants, not just 'surprise inspections'??? Oh, wait, I forgot, that'd cost more money.

  • Surprise inspections (Score:3)

    by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday January 03, 2025 @02:02PM (#65060135) Journal

    It's a surprise that there actually are any quality inspections, but I don't think that's what they meant.

  • certify themselves with in-house DERs (Boeing emplyees acting as FAA Designated Engineering Representatives) signing-off on the planes... but now that Boeing will be doing spot-checks of themselves I feel SO MUCH better[/sarc]

    This is the age old problem of "who watches the watchers?". The FAA is SUPPOSED to be the one watching Boeing. The FAA is apparently too busy going after kids with model airplanes and toy drones/helicopters, and stalling SpaceX test flights with environmental concerns about dumping fre

  • We know about the two hydraulic failures in South Korea and the one in Amsterdam, all occurring over a two day period, but the South Korean press is reporting that there have been many such failures over the last few years including in the UK.

    The South Korean media outlets are also reporting that there's a known failure mode, where the hydraulics stop working if both engines are off. Obviously, that's not the failure mode in any of these cases, as at least one engine was operating in all of them.

    However, th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, business people often do not care if the money they make has blood sticking to it. Boeing "leadership" is an excellent example of that. They are fine with killing innocent people for profit, as long as it does not happen too often. Unless and until this murderous scum is replaced (and preferably imprisoned for the rest of their natural lives), nothing will change.

  • I hate to see them go down like this. I am an Engineer. I think that Engineers should run that company. They should have ISO certification, it is basically, say what you do, do what you say, write it down. Something went wrong there, I think it is that the money grubbers, the salesmen got involved. Do what you say, say what you do. The salesmen, in my understanding, are selling redundant safety systems, were selling them, and that took down two jets and killed over 500 people, is my understandin

  • To prevent rare (but deadly) problems like the door-plug, you have to fix your processes and personnel. Surprise-inspections are completely worthless for that type of problem.

    I guess Boeing does not really want to change anything...

  • I'm confused. "Surprise quality checks." Is it the checks that are a surprise, or the quality?

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