Boeing: Is it Really about Supply Chain?

"The current woes at Boeing tend to get Iumped under the heading of supply chain’. There are compelling reasons as to why they do. However, there are also good reasons as some astute observers point out as to why three signals which highlight later in this article) should not get buried under the mountain of supply chain noise."

- Praveen Gupta

Pleased to reproduce an opinion article by Praveen Gupta for the Journal of Chartered Insurance Institute (UK) as published by him on the LinkedIn. "Underwriters and risk managers must ensure they do not operate in silos, lest they miss the root cause", he tells me.

While everyone seems to be pointing at supply chain as the proximate cause, Clinical Professor Alison Taylor of NYU Stern demonstrates: "this is squarely an issue of unethical leadership, and that's the beginning and end of the story".

For a discerning flier - howsoever infrequent - an airline and its fleet are no longer under-the-radar. Not just the 737 MAX, anything everything to do with the top aircraft manufacturer Boeing tends to raise an alarm.

Some assorted stories flying in the popular media range anything from: Assembling of 787 Dreamliner sections that could weaken the aircraft over time; deliveries falling off the cliff; stock on its worst losing streak since 2018; the Federal Aviation Administration looking into an engine cover that came off a flight; a supplier said it tried using other household products like Vaseline and cornstarch as lubricant before it settled on using liquid Dawn soap; awards outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun a 45% pay rise; Airbus claiming it will leave Boeing in the dust this year. In operation for at least four decades, the last one-and-a-half months are proving not to be a good time for Boeing's US-made AH-64 Apache heavy attack helicopter. (Stories with respective links in the comments).

Boeing's acquisition of McDonnel Douglas, believe some, was the starting point of this turbulence. It compounded with the outsourcing of Dreamliner (787). The root cause, however, can be traced to its board room rather than hashtag #supplychain. A case study of one of the finest engineering companies going off the flight path. Thanks to an astute observer and commentator - Alison Taylor - that we arrive at this level of discernment.