Thursday, January 17, 2013

I Blame the MBA Mentality

The Boeing 787 Dreamliners fleet has been grounded worldwide:
Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines have joined the list of 787 operators that have stopped flying the aircraft following a U.S. FAA directive on Jan. 16. All 787 fleets worldwide have now been grounded.

………

The groundings were prompted by an incident on Jan. 16 in Japan, when an ANA 787 on a domestic flight declared an emergency and diverted to another airport. Pilots reported messages on cockpit indicators concerning the battery and other systems, and they also noticed an unusual odor in the cockpit and cabin. Inspections revealed that the main battery in the forward electronic equipment bay was discolored and its electrolysis solution had leaked.
The 787 has a lot of innovations, but one of its feature is a change in management strategy.

Boeing has outsourced much of the design and engineering to "risk sharing partners" (some of whom it was forced to buy to get things made right) .

To an MBA, it's about cutting overhead.  In reality, it's about losing control of the systems, some of which have never flown on a civil aircraft before, and losing the big picture on how that complex jigsaw puzzle all goes together.

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