As you probably know, we here at Irreal take a dim view of Management meddling in the inner workings of Engineering. That is not at all the same as taking a dim view of Management: they are an important and necessary part of any business but their expertise does not, usually, extend to the best way of running an engineering department. A good rule, it seems to me, is that if you don’t have an engineering background, leave the running of Engineering to those who do.
That brings us to the poster child for this problem: Boeing Aircraft. Boeing once exemplified the perfect company involved in engineering. For a long time they defined the aircraft manufacturing industry. I’ve written a lot about Boeing and its problems but all those posts can’t begin to capture how profoundly sick the company is.
Now the National Transportation Safety Board has weighed in on the in flight separation of a door plug on a Boeing 737. Read their recommendations. It seems like a list of things that any responsible company would do before shipping a product that people depended on not to kill them. As the NTSB makes clear, this incident was a Management failure both on the part of Boeing and the FAA.
I’m sure there are a lot of lessons that can be drawn from all this but mine is simply this: When managers without engineering expertise start meddling in Engineering, you can be sure that it’s going to end in tears.