Due to their current strategy of off-loading design work to inexperienced engineers and laying off their own highly experienced employees, Boeing management has created an environment where these errors are much more likely to occur.
The most telling statement about the trend of engineering at Boeing is this statement, which is heard more and more often from fellow engineers: "After seeing how engineering is done here today, I'm afraid to fly on the next new Boeing airplane."
Some Facts About Airplane Design
It is obvious that an airplane, especially a large commercial aircraft, is a very complicated machine to design and build. What the general public does not understand is that, however difficult they think it is to design and build an airplane, their belief is not one-fiftieth as complicated as the reality.
It takes many years of experience to learn the intricacies of airplane design. Not only does an engineer need to understand how to design detail parts, assemblies and installations, but also where the parts are
manufactured, how the parts are manufactured and how they are put together. Engineers are required to understand lead-times and scheduling to make sure drawings are released on time to support vendor requirements. The responsibilities of an engineer are immense.
In addition, engineers need to control the configuration of the airplane. The parts that go on an airplane depends on many factors:
1) The base model (737, 747, 757, 767, 777)
2) The derivative (737-700, 737-800, 737-900, 757-200, 757-300, 777-200ER, 777-300, 777-300ER, 777-200LR)
3) Standard options (Small cargo door, large cargo door, overwing exits, in-flight entertainment systems)
4) Customer-specific options (Seats, purser stations, the color of the carpet)
There are literally millions of possible configurations. Knowing which parts go on which airplanes is a very important part of an engineer's job.
The systems Boeing has implemented to control airplane configuration (as part of the DCAC/MRM effort) are immensely complex and constantly changing. There are many technical designers and engineers who spend large portions of their time just learning and understanding these systems. Most engineers only have a cursory knowledge of these systems and rely on local "experts". The problem is that these local "experts" are becoming fewer and farther between and their numbers are diminishing rapidly as layoffs continue.
Boeing is lucky that the FAA does not have an audit planned in the near future.
The Offloading of Boeing's Design Engineering
The key to Boeing's success has never been its plants, tools and buildings, but its superior engineering and its willingness to take calculated risks. Both of these assets are disappearing rapidly.
Although much emphasis has been put on such manufacturing concepts as "lean manufacturing" and "just-in-time inventory", it is important to realize that regardless of the efficiencies of the manufacturing process, an airplane or any product cannot succeed without quality engineering design. In the past, Boeing's elite engineering corps has met the challenge and produced the world's best commercial aircraft.
Currently, Boeing is rabidly pursuing a strategy of offloading engineering design work to overseas "design centers". This process began more than a decade ago with "design transfers" to the Japanese (Kawasaki, Mitsubishi and Fuji Heavy Industries). It continues today at a more rapid and frightening pace.
Boeing Design Center - Moscow
Currently, the fastest growing off-load "design center" is located in Moscow, Russia. There are around 350 engineers employed at this center. They are designing primary and secondary structures, interiors, floors and other systems.
There appears to be a common misconception that Russia is a land of promise where the streets are paved with PhD aerospace engineers begging for jobs. The belief is that not only do these brilliant engineers have doctorates, but they have decades of top-notch aircraft design experience. In addition, they are willing to work for 20 to 25% of the pay that American engineers receive. How can Boeing lose?
The reality is that BDC Moscow is manned with few experienced engineers and many, many greenhorns - inexperienced engineers who have graduated within the past few years. Boeing engineers are being pressured to off-load design work to Moscow - to these legions of inexperienced engineers.
Even if we assume that all of the Russian engineers have PhDs and are experienced, ask yourself the following questions:
1) How and where did they gain aircraft design experience? On what new Russian airplane programs have they cut their teeth in the past 10-15 years?
2) How do Russian commercial aircraft compare to the quality, efficiency and safety of Boeing's airplanes?
3) Which leads to the final question: Based on Russian commercial aviation history, do we really want to fly a commercial airplane designed by Russian engineers?
The Russian engineers have to be given some credit. They are nice guys, likeable and smart with relevant college degrees, but they lack several important traits:
1) Experience designing airplanes.
2) The ability to speak English well enough to have an in-depth
technical conversation.
3) The ability to take initiative and to come up with creative
solutions.
This final point is an important one. Decades of communist rule have apparently made it difficult for some Russians to make decisions. They want to be told what to do, down to the most minute detail.
Designing a new airplane with the Russians is like working with a bunch of new college hires - except these new hires don't speak English very well - if at all! Are there any volunteers for who wants to fly on their class project?
All that seems to matter to Boeing's senior management is that Russian engineers are significantly cheaper than American ones. It is important to note that although the Russians are cheaper, a number of significant inefficiencies are introduced:
1) The language barrier
a. It is difficult enough discussing technical issues with an American engineer, let alone with a Russian who has only taken 3 months of English classes.
2) Time zones
a. The only way to communicate with BDC Moscow is via e-mail, conference calls and video conferences. The problem is that there is only a 1 or 2 hour window of opportunity to hold conference calls or video conferences.
b. Because of the brevity and ineffectiveness of conference calls, Boeing engineers waste hours and even days trying to resolve issues via e-mail - when it would only take 10 minutes to walk to the next cube to explain to Phil what needs to be done.
3) Physical distance
a. Documents take days to reach Moscow. Once again, if the work was done within Boeing, it would only take 10 minutes to walk to Harry's desk and drop off the document.
b. CATIA models need to be transferred to Russia in a process that takes hours. If the work was done locally, a model could be transferred almost instantaneously.
Out-sourcing has made a complicated process exponentially more complicated. In the engineering world, complicated processes are known to produce one thing consistently - errors.
The initial results on the quality of work from BDC are frightening. Much of their work on recent programs has had to be completely re-done. Changes that were supposed to be made aren't made properly, and changes that shouldn't have been made are widespread. Luckily, (until recently) there
have been enough experienced Boeing engineers to catch these errors. This is no longer the case after the last painful round of layoffs. It is only a matter of time before a potentially dangerous error slips by.
Yet another concern is that the majority of Russian engineers working at the Boeing Design Center in Moscow are contract (temporary) employees who are overseen by a much smaller number of Boeing direct employees. What keeps these engineers from remaining loyal to Boeing? There is a very real threat
that Boeing will face a situation in the near future where their domestic (American) talent has been ravaged and the Russian engineers move on to other opportunities (such as contracting overseas for much higher salaries or within Moscow at Airbus' newly opened Moscow Design Center).
Is it really a wise business decision to hand over proprietary knowledge to foreign engineers or even worse, foreign contract engineers? Common sense would say no. Phil and Harry seem to think that this is the way to "increase shareholder value".
We think that they are destroying the company.