Something about evaluating production quantity by weight always puts a smile on my face
Imagine measuring computer hardware output by weight.
The key and important factor of computer hardware has little to do with weight.
Whereas, weight is an important factor for aircrafts. A plane produced today will have similar capabilities as a plane produced 30 years ago of the same weight.
That is absolutely not the case for computer hardware.
Hell, compare the F111 vs the F22 on every available metric.
Just like flops/gram has dramatically improved over time for computers.
... As long as you don't do something stupid with it, like using it to evaluate people.
When it comes to material goods that dramatically vary in size (ships, planes, bombs), tonnage is usually a good first metric.
On top of a poor personnel culture, Boeing cares more about splitting it's supply chain up around the world (in order to get contracts from different countries) than making airplanes. The scary part of a bad culture is you could fake it with past airplanes, but newer aircraft with lighter composite parts/less parts (which then make each part's integrity more important) there's less wiggle room. Plus with composite, you can't just do a final QA on things and ensure they are good. You have to QA each layer layup, glues, etc. An xray at the end can't really give you the whole picture. I remember friends talking about how a certain (not Boeing) company was experimenting moving composite layup to China and what a cluster that was going to be. They would find razor blades embedded inside and all kinds of FOB crap on the final xrays, and this was on the pre-production showcase pieces.
The general vibe was if you made a shitty product and it got your fellow countrymen killed, someone would track you down and make you pay for it though.