Requiem: How the Lazy-B Veered off the Runway

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By David Brewster

Seattle has an identity crisis, as the Jet City fades. That was the implicit theme the other night at The Block Table discussion held at Folio Athenaeum Library in the Market. The guest speaker was the admired Boeing reporter for The Seattle Times, Dominic Gates, ably interviewed by Kenan Block (son of Bob Block, the affable founder honored by the name of The Block Table).

-snip-

In its ascendency, Boeing provided well-paying and stable employment for all levels of workers, thus creating the middle-class affluence of Seattle and spreading the city’s name across the world. Unlike Amazon, Boeing played a strong role in local public affairs such as at the Seattle School Board and in funding local arts. The old Boeing shrewdly bet the company (and drew great engineers) by introducing new airliners, the 707, the 727, and the 747. Bill Allen, a Montana lawyer, was an internationally revered CEO of the company, 1945-69. The company rode high on the post-WW II boom years, selling airliners and Pentagon contracts.

Eventually the company veered off the runway. As Dominic Gates recounted the story, the fatal moment came when Harry Stonecipher convinced CEO Phil Condit that Boeing was not a broadly beneficial plough horse, but rather a laggard in growth and stock value. The siren song of modern finance had been heard, and Boeing was seduced.

The fatal advice of Jack Welch of GE to focus overwhelmingly on shareholder equity was underscored by installing a “GE Board” at Boeing and the absence of quality-engineering Seattle representatives. That led to a decision, disastrous in the long run, to outsource a lot of manufacturing to other companies and, by threatening to move manufacturing of new jets elsewhere, thereby squeezing employees on wages and pensions.

https://www.postalley.org/2024/04/28/requiem-how-the-lazy-b-veered-off-the-runway/

[KT2000]

1. Everything wrong was intentional

They had to destroy loyalty and replace it with competition within the company. They had to destroy morale to reduce expectations of the employees so their wages and benefits could be targeted. The had to break the pride of the employee by turning to competition with outside suppliers. They had to take the power away from the engineers who had always led the company. Bean counters could then rule.

It was told in this book: Turbulence: Boeing and the State of American Workers and Managers, by Edward S. Greenberg, Leon Grunberg , et al. | Oct 12, 2010

[AKwannabe]

2. Allen and Gates

Mama


That is all I have to say bout it

[AKwannabe]

3. Mama. You been logging this

A long time


And we will be with you to the end!

[AKwannabe]

4. I wasn't done

Apparently

[moniss]

5. Corporate decline redux

is sadly on full display. We've seen this so much since the '70's. No place is it more apparent than in automotive parts. We see names that once made their parts here with tight QC and engineering excellence shifting their production to whoever will make it the cheapest. Quality gone out the window. The new philosophy became "Just have Customer Service apologize and send them a replacement and hope that one is OK." Run the numbers on the savings in production versus returns and report big increases in quarterly profits and get that big stock bonus package as the CEO. Doesn't take anybody with particular talent or much intelligence to do that to a company. Just a suit and tie and no concern for anybody or anything but yourself.

[FuzzyRabbit]

6. Turning Boeing over to Harry Stoncipher of McDonnell-Douglas was Boeing's downfall.

And everybody knows it. Swedish pilot has an excellent youtube video about it that explains how Boeing made such great airplanes like the 707 and 747 in the past, and how Boeing lost it's way.