Dreamliner was delayed and cost 3x the amount to develop as a result.
This may be more follow-on from engineering-hostile management.
Their airline operations were effectively subsidized and protected by the government and the military for years. They know how to manage a regulatory environment. They seem to have forgotten everything else.
When you're in a publicly traded company you should expect the engineering environment to be actively hostile, it's a peculiar type of environment, where the balance of stakeholder concerns becomes the primary engineering work and not the end state of the product or feature itself.
McD remained an engineering-driven unit whereas Douglas was constantly stymied by accountancy from the early 70s onwards. Douglas lapsed from defence after Ed Heinemann stepped down as chief designer, they had nothing to offer after the A-4.
Boeing Defence is still riding on the solid engineering of the McD F-15 and -18 of that era. Plus the AH-64 from another engineering-driven company, Hughes, and the CH-47 from Vertol. Note the distinct lack of Boeing design origins.
To add on to this, Boeing's F-15 and F/A-18 derivatives (F-15EX Eagle II and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet) have utterly failed to generate sales outside the US military, being defeated namely by Lockheed Martin's F-35 at every turn.
The V-22 Osprey has also had a crashing record, to say the least.
Every assertion in that sentence is false. Indonesia, of all countries, intends to buy a couple dozen export versions of the F-15EX [0] and the RAAF is supplementing its F-35s with Super Hornets and plans to fly them until the 2040s. [1] And Kuwait will replace its Hornets with the Super Hornet as well. [2]
But it's a different kind of mistake to ascribe failure to the F-15EX because it's not selling a lot of foreign copies. The thing you need remember about the F-15EX: it is a younger brother to the Saudi Arabian F-15SA and Qatari F-15QA, and in turn the Israeli F-15IA is newer still, but they are all really similar. The F-15EX includes a second seat that will never be used operationally, and funny little ears under the canopy which hold sensor equipment on the F-15SA but are completely superfluous on the F-15EX, and an engine that is not state of the art for that form factor, because the US military's intent was - to the fullest extent practical - to minimize development time and costs by using equipment whose development and testing had already been paid for. [3]
I expect the trend of countries wanting to supplement fifth gen fighters with 4th and 4.5th gen fighters, for cost as well as operational reasons, will continue to take away from potential F-35 sales. Although back to your original point, that doesn't necessarily hurt Lockheed Martin too much: they do sell a fair number of F-16s, after all, and the newest ones command a high price.
And yes, the Osprey is dogshit.
[0] https://boeing.mediaroom.com/news-releases-statements?item=1...
[1] https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/australian-f/a-18fs-to-...
[2] https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/boeing-consolidates...
> lacked competition for so long
these seem like they could be related...
maybe lack of competition leads to assumption that engineers aren't important to success.
With cost plus contracts that’s unfortunately a feature and not a bug.
I think Boeing has just been unable to pivot to behaving differently for fixed price contracts, which is not surprising given corporate inertia.
My personal razor,
Do not attribute to stupidity that which can be adequately explained by corruption.
Plus, if you already have a little fiefdom of fixed price subcontractors, you can fool yourself into believing you can take fixed price contracts on novel work, passing the burden and risk onto subcontractors, taking a slice no matter what. And that's exactly what has happened with Starliner, right? AFAIU, these valves were designed and built by subcontractors. Boeing's biggest role seems to be project management, and maybe some assembly? Except now they're even failing at that.
Fire talent. Focus on political donations and regulatory capture. Up the C-suite pay and pay high dividends (the dividend was only just very recently cut) whilst taking government handouts.
I think the USA is going to hit a hard wall across all sectors allowing this type shit to go on for so long. Reminds me of the eBay exec steve wymer who said they’ll crush critics of the c suite leading to extreme harassment of journalists. That guy is now more employed than ever because who wouldn’t want such a person on their board in the current operating mode of USA c-suites. Fucking depressing and glaring and anti-American yet we don’t just allow this. We reward it.
Politicians likes to receive money though so of course they say money is speech. I wonder when they say that bribing politicians is speech as well so there can't be laws against direct bribes.
It's our version of the soviet collapse.
The problem is MBA's aren't competent to run companies that require deep knowledge. They have neither the knowledge, the skills, or the interest. So when they grab power they reorganize the company into something they do know how to manage. The problem with a company like Boeing is the company eventually can't function. You get increasing failure to do things that the company used to be able to do.
Meanwhile they will spend endless amounts on consultants and other fluff.
It feels somehow related to the political dynamic where things like building infrastructure are seen as wasteful but not… well… massive graft and waste.
It’s fine to set money on fire as long as you’re not actually accomplishing anything.
Preferring consultants over employees is a way for those in charge to quietly practice nepotism and other forms of favor-granting, shuffling money to people loyal to them or as favors to other powerful people who they want to get favors from
I'm not saying this is the case 100% of the time, but I think if you could give people a truth serum when they are choosing consultants and ask if any of their friends, family, or personal professional network stand to gain from the contract, many would have to say yes
This "heads they win tails we lose" system is the thing that seems odd. They make millions on the theory that they take responsibility for things... If the union guys aren't doing their job: fix it. If some engineers aren't doing their job: fix it. Otherwise what are they getting paid so much for?
Also I don’t think executive pay has any relation to what I am alleging, which is that part of the blame lies on old boys clubs and unions. Executive pay is determined by its own market of supply and demand. Sure they get some of the blame but there are limits to what is possible even for the best of executives. Also consider that the sum of executive pay is a lot less than the sum of the assembly line pay, so even by your own logic the responsibility cannot be solely at the top.
That said I totally agree that Boeing executives have largely failed, and the choices made by the board in appointing finance people or old guard from other aerospace companies is a big part of the problem.
Dreamliner is the Boeing 787 passenger jet.
Starliner is the spacecraft that has been on orbit for the past month, not cleared to return to Earth due to multiple attitude-control thruster failures.