Freefall – a New Netflix Documentary about Boeing |

Wednesday, a new documentary about Boeing will drop on Netflix. Their first Netflix documentary about Boeing focused on the 737 MAX crashes, while this one apparently focuses on quality concerns, whistle-blowers, and the Alaska door plug issues that finally resulted in management changes at the company. We’ve seen Boeing documentaries before, and they are typically quite critical of the company. Based on the trailer for the new Netflix documentary, you can draw your own conclusions about its nature. Our View as Outsiders From our standpoint, two things stand out. First, Boeing did have quality problems in manufacturing. The Alaska flight 1282 incident became the breaking point for the status quo in leadership. The company took corrective action. Second, after that incident Boeing is changing for the better. Kelly Ortberg as CEO is changing both management focus and corporate culture. Is Boeing perfect? No. But is it now trying to be? Yes, it is clearly focused on key issues about quality. FAA oversight and improvements in six key quality measures have earned Boeing a reinstatement of some regulatory authorities. Those authorities, under their production certificate, had been reserved back to the agency by the FAA. Quality in the Renton production line for the 737 is improving, and focused measurement processes have been extended to the 787 line in Charleston The Whistle-blowers and Corporate Culture Whistle-blowers and Boeing have been discussed for the last two decades, particularly in connection with the 787. Without an impartial investigation, we have no way of knowing what really went on, and we don’t know of many companies that invite scrutiny. As a result, we expect to continue to see allegations and denials. With the management change, Boeing has implemented new practices for reporting issues, but as of yet we have no visibility into how well they are working. The bottom line is that we don’t know whom to believe on these issues, as evidence is unavailable. The Future is Being Written Today Two questions remain, however. First, is the Boeing culture changing back to the quality and engineering focus that built its industry leadership in the 1960s and 70s? Second, could Boeing backslide due to commercial and financial pressures, given the multiple hits to its balance sheet from groundings, pandemics, and quality escapes? We will find out by the end of the decade as Boeing ramps-up production while, hopefully, maintaining the highest standards for quality.

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