Boeing Executives Failed to Lead, Waved Off Lean

Boeing CEO David Calhoun, who recently announced he is retiring by year’s end, said publicly, “We caused the problem, and we understand that… Boeing is accountable for what happened.” It’s a company problem, and Boeing is responsible for the work of their suppliers.

But how could mechanics forget to reattach the bolts after putting the door plug back in place? Instead of blaming and potentially punishing individuals or blaming “some idiot,” it’s important to look at systemic causes and contributing factors for which Boeing should be accountable. Again, it’s a company problem, not a worker problem.

The rework was being done outside of the normal process. Why? It was part of a widespread Boeing practice referred to as “traveled work,” which the company defines as tasks “delayed and/or completed in a factory location other than what was originally planned.”

This practice violates lean principles of:

• Building in quality at the source
• Not moving along defective parts or products to be fixed later down the line.

Traveled work is less likely to have formalized standardized work or the normal tools in place. Boeing says that documentation about the door-plug reinstallation is missing (or never existed). And reports say the security-camera recording from the area was overwritten and lost.

It's troubling that such important work was done out of process without documentation. But, in a way, that’s good if the company doesn’t know which individual (or individuals) to punish because the problem was caused by Boeing's policies and practices.

Boeing CFO Brian West said, “Starting on March 1 of this year, we will no longer travel work between Wichita and our fuselage supplier [Spirit AeroSystems] and Renton [Boeing assembly plant] … It had been going on too long. So now we will only accept a fully conforming fuselage from Spirit, which means in the near term, there might be variability of supply.”

The lean experts who taught Boeing about the Toyota Production System certainly instructed the company to put quality first, even if that means stopping the line to address defects instead of passing them on. Decades later, did Boeing forget that lesson, or did they refuse to ever implement it?

CEO Calhoun admitted that the amount of rework taking place in Boeing’s so-called “shadow factory” exceeded the initial labor hours, stating, “In our shadow factories, we put more hours into those airplanes than we do to produce it in the first place…that's a metric I know everybody understands.” That metric is understandable, but it’s completely flabbergasting to hear about any factory spending more time on rework than production.

So why didn’t Calhoun and other leaders do anything about it?

West’s “variability of supply” comment suggests that putting quality first could lead to production slowdowns and late deliveries. In a lean culture, short-term production delays should trigger root-cause problem-solving and countermeasures that drive long-term improvement. Passing defective work along is a workaround—and it’s extremely counterproductive over time.

Reducing that variability of supply—and the resulting variation in aircraft assembly—must extend beyond Boeing rejecting a delivered fuselage that’s not fully conforming to specifications. The company must work with suppliers to help them implement lean methods and mindsets that prevent mistakes and build in quality at the supplier sites (or sub-supplier sites). Part of the formula for Toyota’s success is its collaborative relationships with suppliers. One can’t just demand better quality; instead, one must work together starting during the product design and supplier selection stages of an airplane’s lifecycle.

Lean organizations not only talk about putting safety and quality first; they walk the talk in the boardroom and the factory floor. Point #1 of “The Toyota Way” says the company makes decisions based on long-term, even at the expense of the short-term. That’s another lesson that Boeing forgot or never embraced.

For years, Boeing employees and whistleblowers have complained about a culture where “schedule is king.” In other words, employees and frontline leaders are pressured to keep the line moving—to emphasize and prioritize quantity over quality.

CFO West also admitted, “For years, we prioritized the movement of the airplane through the factory over getting it done right, and that’s got to change.”

If executives were unaware of these practices, which emphasized production quantity and throughput over safety and quality, they should be (and are) held accountable. If leaders directly pushed (or tolerated) those priorities, that’s a fireable offense.

CEO Calhoun acknowledges the company “must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company.” If he hasn’t been doing that for the last four years, Calhoun needs to go—NOW, not at the end of 2024 as announced—if Boeing’s culture is going to change.

There are too many instances of “too little, too late” admissions from Boeing leaders. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Boeing announced “quality standdown days,” to  “allow all teammates who touch the airplane to ‘pause, evaluate what we're doing, how we're doing it and make recommendations for improvement,'” said Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Aviation — now forced into immediate retirement.

Why limit such reflections to frontline employees? Did the Boeing board and senior executives take a day to pause and reflect on their role in safety and quality? During the standdown day, “10,000 participating employees were encouraged to speak up about any concerns they have and offer suggestions about ways to improve the facility's processes.”

That seems like a tacit admission that Boeing had also not learned (or refused to adopt) basic lean principles and practices about engaging everybody in ongoing continuous improvement. How many of these ideas will be implemented?

Changing a broken company culture requires an influx of new leaders from the outside. To prevent future door plug blowouts, and similar manufacturing problems, Boeing executives must embrace, encourage, and reward the following behaviors:

• Every leader prioritizing safety, quality, delivery, and cost — in that order, every day
• Stopping production to fix quality problems, using rigorous problem-solving methods, instead of passing them on to another facility or a rework area
• Engaging every team member in improvement every day soliciting ideas and acting on them continuously, instead of waiting for a kaizen event or another “stand down”

It’s time for Boeing to learn and embrace the lean lessons of Toyota and other world-class manufacturers.

Mark Graban is a management consultant, coach and author who builds upon a deep education in engineering and management with practical experience working with executives and frontline employees in multiple industries. A faculty member of the Lean Enterprise Institute, Mark has learned, practiced and taught lean management, continuous improvement, statistical methods and people-centered leadership approaches. He is the author of several books on lean, including "The Mistakes That Make Us," and is senior advisor to the software company KaiNexus.