The fatal problem has not been found out until now, Boeing has been cornered, and the 737 production line has been shut down

Boeing just made a decision: the entire 737 manufacturing team took a one-day shutdown to get an education on quality management. This includes rethinking the entire process and how to enhance collaboration to improve the quality of the entire product manufacturing.

The shutdown for 1 day due to quality problems is a big move. You must know that when the Boeing 737 production line was at full fire, the production rate was 52 aircraft in one month. If the shutdown is one day, about 1.8-1.9 planes will not be able to leave, which may mean more than $200 million in losses for Boeing. Such a shutdown also shows that Boeing has attached great importance to quality issues.

(At present, the study of work stoppage is estimated to emphasize more on the implementation of existing procedures and methods, rather than thinking of new recruits)

Speaking of which, some friends will ask, how much of a role can a 1-day shutdown make?

Let's analyze it objectively. Boeing has detailed regulations for its products, including supply chain, quality control of final assembly, standard process flow, etc. Take out those papers, I'm afraid they can fill a room. None of this is a new problem, and perhaps the real problem is whether the regulations on paper are strictly enforced and implemented on today's production lines.

For a long time, in fact, we were worried about the lack of these process standards, but companies like Boeing actually have relatively perfect process standards. What it may need to focus on now is implementation, emphasizing the sense of responsibility of the entire production participant, which is very important. Because you can't make sure that every process is rigorous enough to ensure that it is implemented, people can still play a very important role in it.

Why is Boeing having this problem, and is it stopping work for quality reasons?

In fact, it all stemmed from the 737 MAX 9's hatch falling off in January. The incident has been under investigation for some time and preliminary conclusions have been reached. What? On that hatch, there are four limit bolts missing. The loss of these 4 limit bolts is a big problem, because the door on the Boeing 737 Max 9 has 12 limit devices to make sure it doesn't fall off. Once it flies, the internal pressure is high and the external pressure is small, it will tightly press it against the limiting device and will never fall.

A friend in the aviation industry made an analogy, and I think it's quite vivid. He said that the hatch was installed in a way that was a bit like our pressure cooker, and that the lid could only be opened when it was rotated to a certain angle. If it's not at this angle, the lid will be killed by all the limit blocks, and you can't lift it no matter how you lift it. So how does it get to that position where the limit is disengaged? That is, the hatch is lifted up as a whole, and it can let go of all 12 limit devices, and then it can be pushed outward. In other words, the hatch can be opened when necessary, but it is not usually used. And to open it, it is a technical maintenance work, and it is not a normal passage for passengers to leave the plane.

So, how to avoid the hatch door out of the safe position? There are 4 limit bolts, after the 4 limit bolts are screwed on, the hatch door can not be lifted up, it will be firmly stuck there by the 12 limit blocks, will not fall, a bit of four or two dial a thousand pounds. But the problem now is that the NTSB in the United States found that these 4 limit bolts are missing, and there are several possibilities at present:

The first is, in the event of an accident, whether the 4 strands of bolts fell off and failed. If this is the case, the 4-strand bolt must have been pumped out of the body. I guess it took a lot of effort to find these 4 bolts on the ground, and I haven't found them yet, but I am said to be looking for them.

(Open door in the air, Boeing 737 MAX 9 staged a frightening scene)

There is also a possibility that these 4 bolts did not fall off before this flight. If this is the case, it should be on the inner wall of the aircraft. Whether it can be found on the inner wall of the plane, or whether it has been pulled out along with the accident is another troublesome matter.

There's another possibility, which is a little more thrilling. Just these 4 bolts, is it not installed at all? Although the possibility of this idea cannot be ruled out, it is still a bit unbelievable that for an old company like Boeing, these 4 bolts were not installed during the final assembly. You said it was leaking and loose, and I think it's more likely.

Moreover, now Alaska and United Airlines have found signs of loosening of some bolts in their own fleets. This means that if it is pushed down, it is not the plane that had the accident, its bolts have also been loosened, and at some point it has fallen off, resulting in the displacement of the hatch, lifted upward, and collapsed by the air pressure, and the whole failure, this possibility now seems relatively large.

(Investigators are carefully analyzing whether these 4 bolts fell off for some reason, or they were not installed at all)

But even with this possibility, Boeing is definitely in a cold sweat. Because it was a serious accident, it was fortunate that there were no passengers sitting near this hatch at the time, otherwise there could have been serious personal injury. If the flight altitude of the aircraft at that time reached 30,000 feet, in fact, it was 16,000 feet, about 5 kilometers, and if it was really at an altitude of 10,000 meters, then the accident may cause the entire fuselage pressurization system to fail. The fuselage of the aircraft may be structurally damaged, popping like a balloon, and that's terrible.

So Boeing was definitely frightened, and this time the decision was to rectify the quality. And Boeing's stock price, with the fall of the hatch this time, has also fallen all the way, from about $280 to about $205 now, as if it is 205 today. The magnitude of this heavy fall is equivalent to the evaporation of the dollar.

But lessons still need to be learned, and Boeing should say that it is not facing a new problem. This kind of quality problem has been encountered by aviation manufacturing giants in the past, but this kind of problem may be more caused by unsound process standards. Now that the process standards are sound, whether the change in production rate and the lack of personnel awareness have led to such serious accident symptoms, then we have to deeply reflect.

Now it seems that Boeing has run into old problems and may have to use the old ways. The only thing that needs to be solved is that all the methods, procedures and standards that are already in place are implemented in a really serious and serious way throughout the entire production process. Only in this way will it be possible for Boeing to get out of its current predicament.