Boeing, Pressured To Show Change, Points To Process Improvements

Metrics that indicate an aircraft manufacturer’s success—backlog, production rates and deliveries—will always matter for Boeing. But the struggling company’s progress toward operational and financial stability will be tracked by different figures that show the effectiveness of its effort to make fundamental, lasting changes.

Both Boeing and the FAA were criticized when the manufacturer’s much-anticipated turnaround plan, developed in 90 days and handed over to the agency at the end of May, emphasized six business school-like key performance indicators (KPI). Tracking issues such as the number of hours spent reworking incorrectly done jobs or incomplete tasks on aircraft rolling off the assembly line sound rudimentary for an aerospace manufacturing titan.

• Changes in training and inspections are in place
• Independent safety monitor idea remains in play

But Boeing’s plan, developed with the FAA’s input, does not introduce the KPIs. Rather, it establishes ranges to be maintained within each. Improved figures for production rates and deliveries will come when Boeing’s production lines can move faster without triggering warnings built into the KPIs.

For instance, if too many jobs are traveling—or not being completed within their designated production line positions—alarm bells should sound. Conversely, if Boeing stays within the parameters it set, production should run more smoothly—and eventually more quickly.

“We are running our business based on these KPIs, as well as reviewing them with the FAA,” Elizabeth Lund, Boeing senior vice president of quality, explained during a June 25 media briefing at the airframer’s 737 production facility here.

Each KPI has a green, yellow and red range, or “control limit,” Lund said. The precise ranges were derived by looking at “seven or eight years” of historical data for each aircraft program from “when we were healthy.”

Ensuring that jobs are done correctly the first time or workers have sufficient proficiency requires fundamental changes. The most visible of these is Boeing’s pending purchase of Spirit AeroSystems, intended as a long-term solution for halting the steady flow of mistakes that come out of the supplier’s shops and create havoc within the airframer’s walls (AW&ST May 6-19, p. 20).

Boeing has stepped up quality inspections at Spirit to help cut down on the number of nonconformances that leave the supplier and become potential bottlenecks—or worse. All of the recent changes—and many still to come—can be traced to five incorrectly installed rivets on a 737-9 fuselage and, as Lund revealed, a woefully inadequate Boeing process for addressing such issues.

The airframer flagged the problem soon after the fuselage was delivered to the Renton plant last fall. The fuselage, nonconforming rivets and all, went through the entire production process while Boeing and Spirit deliberated over how to fix the issue.

“The airplane was at the end of the line by the time we all reached agreement that some rivets needed to be removed and replaced,” Lund said. Accessing the rivets required opening a mid-exit door plug by removing four retaining bolts, or pins. “We believe that plug was opened without the correct paperwork,” she said.

Once the rivets were repaired, a Boeing “move crew” that relocates aircraft went through its checklist, which includes closing doors. They closed the door plug, but without paperwork to reference, the move crew team did not know that bolts needed to be reinstalled.

As part of the documentation of its work, the move crew took a photo of the door plug after it was closed. Clearly visible in the image: gaps where pins should have been.

“They did not reinstall the retaining pins,” Lund said. “That is not their job. Their job is to just close it, and they count on existing paperwork. The paperwork goes with the airplane. All of the jobs are worked. Any open job gets worked later in the process. In this case, because we believe the paperwork was never created, there was no open paperwork that traveled with the airplane.”

The 737-9 was delivered and flew 154 flights before the door, resting inside stops attached to the frame, worked itself free and blew off during Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 5.

While the flight crew landed the aircraft safely, and nobody was seriously hurt, the near-disaster exposed a stark reality. Boeing’s quality control processes and tolerance for fixing mistakes instead of preventing them were so risky that a routine production issue such as nonconforming rivets could be enough to cause a major in-service event.

The NTSB, which earlier blasted Boeing for not having paperwork detailing who opened and closed the door plug, said Lund’s comments were not vetted in advance with the board—a violation of investigative rules. ​Boeing is still participating in the Alaska probe, but with newly restricted access.

Following the Alaska occurrence, the FAA launched immediate probes into both the 737-9 and Boeing’s production.

The 737-9 was quickly cleared of any systemic risks. However, an FAA audit found deep-rooted problems at Boeing that prompted the agency to limit 737 production to 38 per month until the manufacturer can demonstrate consistent stability (AW&ST Feb. 12-25, p. 16). Boeing is now rolling out 20-25 737 MAXs per month, according to data from Aero Analysis Partners/AIR,​ and does not expect to reach 38 for several months at least. The 90-day plan ordered by the FAA lays out how it intends to achieve that.

Beyond that plan, Boeing’s immediate steps included developing a written procedure for opening and closing mid-exit door plugs. It then examined other seemingly benign procedures that, if not done correctly, could put an aircraft at risk. It added predelivery inspections on many of them “out of an abundance of caution,” Lund said, and reexamined documentation to ensure procedures are clear.

That led to broader conversations with employees who are identifying production issues that merit attention, she said.

Among the recent changes are new work-in-progress racks that follow an aircraft around with digitally tracked parts and documentation detailing what work remains to be done.

Boeing also is revisiting archaic documentation that often left jobs unfinished and workers scratching their heads.

“We have been operating under the same foundational elements of many of our processes and procedures for 50 [or more] years,” Lund said. “We have updated them . . . but primarily we have added to them. What we ended up with is a deep and broad list of [documentation] that is particularly difficult for new employees to come in, grasp and understand.”

Increased inspections at a supplier or enhanced training programs for new employees can be implemented quickly. But rewriting work instructions or lifting the general experience level on an aircraft factory floor is more involved.

“This is a journey,” Lund said, repeating a line often used by Boeing executives in recent months.

But some are losing patience. Family members of victims killed in the two fatal 737-8 accidents in 2018 and 2019 want the U.S. government to charge Boeing criminally, citing the company’s violation of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement linked to the accidents. Some members of the U.S. Congress agree.

The Justice Department determined in May that Boeing violated the agreement. It is considering criminal charges; a decision is expected in early July. The company says it has honored the agreement’s terms.

Also in play is an independent safety monitor, which the FAA said it would explore as part of its audit. Family members of 737-8 accident victims also have asked a U.S. judge to name one.

The idea has been floated to alleviate issues flagged within Boeing’s FAA-granted organization designation authorization (ODA). But given the manufacturer’s scope—it holds four different types of ODA authority, including one for type certification and one for production—a single organization, let alone just one monitor, may not be enough.

“A single, third-party ODA may not be able to adequately monitor all Boeing activities,” says Mike Borfitz, a former FAA and Boeing engineer with extensive certification experience who is now CEO of consultancy Kilroy Aviation, which recently earned ODA approval. “Boeing has three final assembly plants. The concept of separate ODAs for each plant and airplane model, including out-of-production models, may be worth considering.”

Borfitz acknowledges in a soon-to-be-published white paper that an independent ODA could not be set up overnight, but he suggests that a “supervisory audit function” reporting to the FAA and Justice Department could stand in as it is formed.

“The third-party Boeing ODA concept would admittedly be a difficult undertaking,” Borfitz says. “But it offers a solution to many aspects of Boeing’s current troubles.”