WillowRun 6-3
The shift of production to South Carolina was a result of Boeing executives that thought that the Seattle work force was too expensive. Well big surprise
the old adage you get what you pay for actually applied and so any work force savings are now obliterated by the costs to fix the problems the low wage work force created. The South Carolina production decision however is just a symptom of the root cause. The old Boeing ( ie pre MD merger ) was an engineering company and so the last major program at old Boeing, the 777, was designed mostly in house with aircraft component subcontracting carried out largely after the design was completed. When the 787 program was launched by the new Boeing, the Boeing engineers wanted to use the same process but were over ruled by the C suite execs. Instead the big bosses wanted both the design and build of most major components subcontracted to the lowest bidder who was usually many time zones away and often did not have proven production record. Boeing people would therefore only be doing the integration work which allowed for greatly reducing the size and influence of the engineering department.
Because Boeing execs were so focused on cost and largely had no real engineering or production background they did not appreciate what the ramifications of their decisions was. In particular outsourcing design and manufacturing QA meant that by the time it was apparent things were badly wrong it was too late to fix. Many of the issues were IMO totally foreseeable, if there had been any Boeing oversight. Ultimately all of Boeings problems with the 787 and indeed the MAX fiasco, can be attributed to a refusal on the part of senior Boeing management to acknowledge the value of spending money on quality engineering and production. Pay now or pay (more) later, there are no shortcuts in large aircraft design and manufacturing.