zlacker

Maybe a decade ago I read from critics concerned a shift to an aggressively globalized supply chain was certain to wreak havoc on Boeing’s quality control.

e.g. safety-critical nuts and bolts used to be produced down the street, now you get a few nuts from say Thailand and a few bolts from Malaysia… the critics complained it was certain to lead to problems.

Was that a part of what you read about in that book?

>>Barbin+(OP)
Not significantly no, it was much more focused on the McDonnell-Douglas reverse acquisition. To summarize: McDonnell-Douglas was failing and bought Boeing with Boeing’s own stock (technically Boeing bought McDonnell-Douglas with Boeing stock but in practice McDonnell management assumed control). MD’s executives were Jack Welch protégés and did the same thing to Boeing that happened to GE.

>>tonyar+W5
The part that story always stays silent is that Boeing then-CEO was big fan of Welch-ism apparently and oversaw major changes that caused long-term issues

... while new people (albeit not execs) from McDonnell-Douglas were publishing internal memos about how MD has experience on why the actions taken by Boeing (not MD!) CEO will cause problems.

>>tonyar+W5
So, if MD was failing, who thought it would be a good idea to let the MD execs take over Boeing? Was the board asleep?

>>Animal+Xq1
Corporate boards in practice have a long history of being controlled more by management, than the other way around.

>>tonyar+W5
That’s too bad. Very interesting—thank you!