Originally Posted by
WillowRun 6-3
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On the difference between craftsmen and riveting, and significantly more automated, methods of aircraft manufacturing:
Suppose one were on a commission, properly charged and authorized, asked to advise the receiver for Boeing company - which (hypothetically) has been put into receivership resulting from otherwise intractable problems stemming from the criminal matter in Texas, governance deficiencies overall, and others - about leveraging the existing company into one that is at least as automated in manufacturing as Toulouse (if not more so). At what point in time should Boeing have made the change to automated methods in the past? Is it even meaningful to conceive of such a transformation occuring at all in light of what's gone wrong to date?
Transition: The moment you start with a new frame. Airbus did so, right from the beginning, with the A300 and developed this further. However, this does require a vision, beyond a short-term financial profit. Especially after the McD merger, this vision was completely out of reach. In those days, the financial highlight had decided, that "current technology" was suitable for the future and all "developments" should be just extensions of current technology. Note, that this vision was not only rising in the airline industry. Management at many engineering companies did follow the same seminars and courses and were on the same route. Boink.
The B777 could have been a starting point, a bit early, though the same applies for the A300.
Be aware, this is not only the manufacturing, though also the acceptance, that one needs highly skilled labor to manufacture airplanes. Boeing was on the opposite road, to squeeze on labor costs in production, with all the quality problems that stem from that.
Originally Posted by
WillowRun 6-3
Another question - after the Second World War, and the emergence of the Chicago Convention of 1944 and (soon after) ICAO, Boeing had no massive competitor in Toulouse, obviously. Boeing contributed quite significantly to the development, growth, and technological advance of the global civil aviation sector for decades -- not the only airframer to do so, of course, but the most dominant. The point isn't about eliciting sympathy for poor Boeing; no. The question is, doesn't Toulouse's achievement owe a great deal to Boeing's heavy lifting of aircraft manufacturing for several decades? Boeing did so much to create the industry which Airbus then arose to serve in some ways better than Boeing had served it and was serving it - correct? Does that not give some impetus, in other words some validity, to the idea that wrong-doers at Boeing deserve to be held accountable as completely as feasible, but the corporate entity is worth redeeming?
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Actually, Airbus isn't "started" as "Airbus", though was an initially hesitating cooperation of several independent airplane/helo manufacturers in Europe, who realized that each of them individually did not have the scale to be able to properly compete with Boeing (and others) and "decided" (IE pushed by the EU), to cooperate more closely, finally becoming one company, etc.