I'm reading more and more about a change in Boeing's corporate culture decades ago that led to a slow degradation of Boeing's quality control. It's the same old story; prioritizing short-term profits over safety and quality. It was just a matter of time before it started to catch up with them.
My husband retired from Boeing in 2004. Before that time, he worked in assembly. Back then every station of work on the plane had an inspector that had to “sign off” on the integrity of the work done at that particular assembly point. Then they eliminated the line inspectors right around the time he left. I thought to myself that this was a stupid move and that they’d eventually pay for doing it.
It was “not cost efficient” to leave them in place, Boeing said. It “wasn’t necessary” to have line inspectors. The “inspectors” that examined all of the plane at the end were good enough.
Evidently, the “decision-makers” assumed that every single person in assembly had the enthusiasm and ethics to perform their work well just to support the good, old Boeing Company. All of us know there are good people who are competent at what they do and don’t have to always have to have someone hanging over their shoulder watching them and then there’s everyone else who just doesn’t give a sh*t about what they’re doing.
I've been fascinated by what I've decided to call the 'KFC Affect': An initial array of offerings, or the size, quality or variety of a product is gradually cut back, until a minimum of recognizability is maintained to keep the traditional customer on the hook. E.G., the weight of a portion (a candy bar, or a box of cereal). KFC once had many more 'sides', and yummy dessert tarts, gave out honey with the biscuit, and what happened to the moist towelette? Same thing here: What can we get away with? ..