Boeing on Broadway?

Amusing.  -GFS

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Boeing on Broadway? No, “Boeing Boeing”

By Rami Grunbaum, deputy business editor, and Times business Staff

PREV  of  NEXT

LONGACRE THEATER

A promotional poster for the current Broadway production of the 1960s bedroom comedy “Boeing Boeing.”

A wacky bedroom farce that opened last Sunday on Broadway puts the name of Puget Sound’s largest employer up in lights — twice over.

“Boeing Boeing” is no product-placement gimmick, though. It’s the hit revival of a 1960s French play whose improbable plot takes off when airlines shift to a new generation of faster planes.

The original show enjoyed huge success in Europe, but flopped in the U.S. after just 23 performances. A forgettable movie version with Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis was advertised as “the big comedy of nineteen-sexty-sex.”

The last time a company name got such prominent billing on stage or screen was probably the stoner comedy flick “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.” And the last time the words “Boeing” and “sex” shared headlines, a CEO lost his job. But never mind that.

Some trademark watchdogs would take umbrage, or legal action, if the corporate name were hijacked by Broadway. Imagine the lawyers circling a production called “Starbucks Starbucks.”

But Boeing’s vice president of brand and market positioning, Rob Pollack, sees no downside.

“It’s kind of fun; it doesn’t talk about airplanes very much,” he says. “From a branding standpoint I don’t have any problem with it. It’s a lot better than ‘Airbus Airbus.’ “

Not that Airbus was around when Marc Camoletti concocted the premise of the piece: An American in Paris who is carefully juggling simultaneous engagements to three stewardesses.

All is well so long as each of them travels for days at a time, working on the slow-flying 707. But the playboy’s arrangements start to unravel with the debut of speedier jets from Boeing and others.

Judging by the buzz for the current production, it could be headed for a Tony nomination next week. That would help keep “Boeing Boeing” aloft a lot longer this time around.

 

China Launches Its Own Aircraft Manufacturing Company

Now this is interesting and not very surprising.  In fact, I was wondering when this would occur.  With all of the moving of composite materials and parts manufacturing to China and other countries outside of the U.S. and the many instances of espionage, some of which have been noticed,  challenged and the culprits arrested and prosecuted, it seemed only a matter of time before China would be moving into its desired role as competitor to Boeing and Airbus, not just a source of cheap labor and supply for the big two.  Somehow certain U.S. companies appear to just keep shooting themselves in the foot, and taking our economy and everyone else along with them.  GFS

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China launches homegrown jumbo jet manufacturing company

The Associated Press

China established a homegrown company Sunday to make passenger jumbo jets – a step forward in the country’s quest to become less dependent on Boeing and Airbus.

China Commercial Aircraft Co. was established in Shanghai with registered capital of 19 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion; euro1.75 billion), the official Xinhua News Agency and state broadcaster CCTV said.

Europe’s Airbus has forecast that China’s domestic aircraft market will increase fivefold by 2026. Airbus and Chicago-based rival Boeing dominate the market for commercial airplanes carrying 100 or more people.

Xinhua said China Commercial Aircraft Co. will be able to make planes with more than 150 seats.

The central government and the Shanghai government are among the major shareholders, as are China’s two main aircraft manufacturing and servicing companies, China Aviation Industry Corp. I and China Aviation Industry Corp. II, which were split off from state-owned China Aviation Industry Corp. in 1999.

The state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission committed 6 billion yuan (US$86 million; euro55.6 million), making it the largest investor.

Given China’s limited experience with making commercial airliners, manufacturing jumbo jets would be a significant achievement. China’s first commercial jet, a 85-seater developed by China Aviation Industry Corp. I, had its maiden flight postponed last month until later in the year because of delays in the delivery of key components.

China Commercial Aircraft general manager Jin Zhuanglong said in a Xinhua interview that it was too early to say when a Chinese-developed jumbo jet would be taking off, as it would take a long time to develop talent and conduct research.

“According to the development history of Airbus and Boeing, the development and success of civil planes cannot be realized by relying on one or two generations,” he was quoted as saying.

China welcomes cooperation with foreign companies and will make full use of foreign technology in developing its aircraft, Xinhua quoted him as saying.

The company’s short-term goal is to help market the 85-seat ARJ21, he said.

Chinese carriers have already ordered 181 of the planes. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with GE Capital Aviation Services on a possible order for five jets, which would be the first sale to a major foreign company.

 

Why Boeing may never reform its business practices

Someone who was doing some research on the Internet sent this article to me today.    The reader found it and thought it did a good job of clarifying the problem of why Boeing and perhaps some other defense contractors do not appear to be willing to clean up their acts.  I am interested in how Boeing has allegedly co-opted the FAA and others regarding safety practices.  It is an interesting and plausible scenario that if Boeing has operated this way with commercial aircraft manufacturing and business, it likely has used it’s influence through the intense lobbying efforts it uses at all levels of government, and availed itself of the very active Revolving Door between Boeing and governmental agencies, particularly DOD and agencies with oversight responsibilities, to reduce or in some cases eliminate requirements Boeing finds inconvenient, too expensive, or gets in the way of certain people’s ambitious plans.  Read and think on it.  GFS

 

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Why Boeing will never reform itself and end the fraud noted on this site willingly:

After reading this site’s contents you might well be baffled as to why Boeing continues to risk another “Druyun/EELV affair” (although this fraud is many times worse than those matters) and continues to also willingly place at greater risk the lives of the public that fly on Boeing jets because of Boeing’s acceptance of greater “business risk” by the hobbling of Quality, Safety, and Reliability ensuring practices that has placed the vast majority of this extra “Boeing business” risk not on Boeing itself, but on the lives of those passengers and crew who unknowingly (unless they stumble across this site) bear such extra risk solely for Boeing’s quest for ever greater Bottom line value and for whatever part of this “value” gets deducted from Boeing airplane prices and therefore “benefits” airlines (until the inevitable hull loss accident because of this fraud). The first sign that Boeing does not intend to end this obvious fraud willingly has been proven by Boeing’s actions in my attempts to bring this fraud to their attention in damning detail on multiple occasions. On those occasions Boeing’s actions were just “CYA” extremely limited and biased internal audits that may have made an uninformed person think Boeing had done something, when in fact those audits changed nothing noticeably to end this fraud in order to ensure the “benefits” of the noted fraud continued to add to meeting Boeing’s all-important bottom line maximization goals. Boeing’s similar and purposeful inaction to end this endemic fraud within the company placing innocent lives at extra risk intentionally for more bottom line dollars after I “broke the story” publicly on this site and in the news media also proves Boeing’s inability to take action themselves to reverse this fraud the company has been willingly fostering for years, no matter how public these crimes ultimately become. The most powerful motive for Boeing to resist internal reforms seemingly regardless of the consequences is not because of its (by one highly placed management source within the company) self-described status as “the most arrogant company on the face of the planet.” It instead comes to what everything is about at Boeing–the almighty dollar. Boeing is one of the most business plan driven companies in existence. Anything that does not support reaching the business plan’s “targets” is in jeopardy, even if legally and regulatory required, such as Boeing’s compliance with its Production and Type Certificates goes. This explains not only why Boeing intentionally subverted and intentionally did not comply with its minimum quality system and certification requirements as documented on this site–it also explains why Boeing will willingly do nothing to reverse the “gains” to the business plan made by this fraud.  To reverse this fraud would be much more difficult for Boeing than the actions it had to take to put these fraudulent activities in place. Years of QA manager’s (and their manager’s) and complicit QA Lead’s (now “Team Leaders”) efforts to turn inspectors into mostly just rollerstampers of paperwork would have to be reversed–not an easy or short time span task. Most of the time “leaned out” of production line flow to enable shorter flowtimes and moving lines was time for inspectors to actually inspect the airplanes, which was not necessary in the rollerstamping quality system put in place by Boeing. However, complying with Production Certificate requirements to have inspectors actually inspect per quality system requirements would require much of that time to be added back into the production schedule and/or an unprecedented number of inspectors per mechanic ratio than that of the past.  Boeing will not take these actions willingly due to their cost (effect on meeting the business plan) and the effect on flowtimes. Indeed, because of the above, I don’t expect Boeing to ever admit any of the corruption I have documented on this site and elsewhere, because to do so would require Boeing to take some action to stop it, which it does not want to do for the aforesaid reasons, among others (effect on their undeserved reputation, etc.). But if Boeing does fess up to some of these past and present crimes (which will probably happen only because they would calculate greater risks to the company’s bottom line if they did not do so, such as ignoring the results of the ongoing review by the DOT OIG might ultimately bring the company), don’t even then expect Boeing to end this corruption. Just like after the Special Technical Audit of 1999/2000 where they were “caught with their pants down” “violating” many of even of the most basic requirements of the FAA, expect Boeing only to do the minimum they think they can get away with as far as reform until the “problems” (the auditors) go away and Boeing can then do business again as usual. Also expect another tactic used by Boeing during “C/A” after the STA, implementing programs (with the tacit approval of a similarly corrupt FAA) that actually made compliance with its quality system much worse than before the STA, and indeed, in some cases, eliminated unjustifiably the requirements Boeing had violated, rather than Boeing ever complying with those “burdensome” requirements that were in place to ensure quality, safety, and reliability requirements were met, but were “too prescriptive” and therefore had to go to meet Boeing’s overriding goal of enhancing efficiency over everything, including safety.  From:  www.thelastinspector.com

 

Joint GAP/OSC Watch Forum-Int. Assembly of Whistleblowers 5-13-08

Government Accountability Project

National Office

1612 K Street, NW Suite #1100 • Washington, D.C. 20006

202.408.0034 • www.whistleblower.org

OSC Watch

11130 Kingston Pike

Suite 1-125

Knoxville, TN 37934

www.oscwatch.org

 

 

 

Joint GAP/OSC Watch Forum at the

International Assembly of Whistleblowers

on Tuesday, May 13, 2008

 

 

 

 May 8, 2008

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE             

 

Contact: Sarah Goldmann, Nat. Campaign Coordinator for Whistleblower Rights

Phone :    202.408.0034 ext 141

Email :     sarahg@whistleblower.org

 

Contact: Tom Devine, Legal Director

Phone :    202.408.0034 ext 124, 202.888.4080 (cell)

Email :     whistle47@aol.com 

Contact: Joe Carson, Chair, OSC Watch Steering Committee

Phone:  865-300-5831

Email:  Joe.Carson@oscwatch.org

 

 

(Washington, D.C.) – May 11-16 marks the second year of annual events and conferences aimed at raising awareness of whistleblower issues in Washington, D.C.   < www.internationalassociationofwhistleblowers.org> has  information about the entire Assembly.  

The following event will be available, via a conference call-in line, to a nationwide audience.  The conference call-in number is 218-936-7999 and the participant access code is  495508#. 

There may be an additional panelist to discuss the recent FBI raid on OSC officers and the home of Special Counsel Scott Bloch.

 

 

Forum on the Office of Special Counsel

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

9:00 a.m. – 9:50 a.m.,

Washington Court Hotel,

525 New Jersey Ave, N.W.

Washington, DC

 

 

This forum will focus on the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), its nondiscretionary duties as an investigatory agency for the laws under its jurisdiction (particularly to protect federal employees from whistleblower reprisal), efforts to spur Congress to perform necessary oversight, and what the recent federal raid on the office means for its future. 

 

Panelists include: 

 

o         Joe Carson, P.E., Nuclear Safety Engineer – DOE. 

o         David Nolan, Legal Advisor to OSC Watch Steering Committee.

o         Carol Czarkowski, Former Contracting Officer – Department of Navy

o         Sandalio “Sandy” Gonzalez, Retired Special Agent-in-Charge – DEA.