| madcorgi |
03-14-2019 10:49 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
(Post 10391614)
I wish I could say I am surprised.
While they may have done well in getting rid of me, they unfortunately lost an awful lot of really good people. The "Golden Handshake" fairly decimated the ranks, as it was intended to do. Across the board - from engineering to mechanics on the floor, a lot of experience was lost.
They followed that up with a pretty intense hiring binge. Especially within the mechanics' ranks. The problems noted in the linked article are, unfortunately, the inevitable result. Not enough "adult supervision" and the attendant discipline that instills. The company is going through teething pains. They are trying to get this new generation house broken and up to speed. It will take awhile.
For those of you unfamiliar with airline industry practices, "FOD" is a big, big deal. A really big deal. An enormously big deal. By way of example, I was hanging out in a 767 MLG wheel well one day in Tel Aviv when a mechanic above me on a scissors lift dropped a nut. I heard it clatter down off of the lift and land on the concrete floor somewhere near me. It was obviously on the floor somewhere.
In other industries, the fact that we both heard it hit the floor probably would have been good enough. It was obviously no longer anywhere on the airplane. Not so in the aviation world - it was imperative that we find that nut. To make a long story short, we eventually had the entire crew of about 30 mechanics, several engineers, several inspectors, and even the shift supervisor looking for that nut. It shut down the entire job. It was simply not an option to proceed without finding that nut. We did, several hours later, but that's how important FOD is in our world.
So, sandwiches and tools on a delivered aircraft? Someone got in very, very big trouble. Might have even lost their job. Probably reduced to being a burger flipper, or an architect, or some other equally unrewarding job.
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I have a gadget that looks like a push-broom with wheels that has a strong magnet in it. I use it frequently when I drop fasteners in my shop--picks up anything ferrous. Sounds like you guys could have used one. Unless the nut was titanium or something.
Spent a couple years prowling the factory floor during the 777 AP #1 era. Our factories were pretty damn clean, but the Heavies' even were cleaner. I visited them all as one of Mulally's entourage in 93 or 94.
The Dreamliner fiasco was a disaster that simply would not have happened under the "old guard" whose tender ministrations gently guided me for two years with exhortations of "I'm gonna put my foot up your ass sideways!" Missing an on-dock date by even a day was unimaginable, much less a couple of years!
It was the most inefficient, wasteful management system I ever saw, but we made our on-dock dates. Proving the time-honored rule that companies that can afford wasteful inefficiency tend to indulge in it. I had twice as many on my staff as I needed, all lifers way older than me, with too little meaningful work to keep them all busy, yet my bosses wanted to continue to grow their fiefdoms. I had two senior managers between me and my director.Morale was ****, and we lost every decent person we had. My Boeing on-site manager in Gifu was an idiot, went completely native, and could not get anything done. That guy could not have pulled a greasy string out of a sick cat's ass. He became an enemy, bombing us every night with faxes. After rollout, I got bored and left for my next Boeing gig before the layoffs and buyouts started. Everyone I knew either retired or bailed.
Gorgeous airplane, though. And all the parts made it on dock on schedule.
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