By Michael Bournazian, Eng., Newsletter Editor, ASQ Senior Member, Quality Management Professional, CSSGB
In all the years that I have been the Newsletter Editor for the ASQ Montreal Chapter, I don’t think I have ever discussed or reviewed a movie that I have seen.
Well, I don’t plan on giving you a review or even discussing it much (the eye of the beholder being what it is), but I will encourage you, if you are a subscriber to Netflix, to watch the documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing“.
The documentary, released in February 2022, details the 2 fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 Max jets in October 2018 and March 2019 that claimed the lives of 346 people in total. A good part of the film that will certainly be of interest to the Quality professional is how an ownership and culture change at Boeing (towards shareholder satisfaction and away from a “Quality and Safety First” mentality) directly caused the crashes.
As someone who has spent a good portion of his Quality career in aerospace, as well as time as a supplier to Boeing, it gave me only a small feeling of relief that any work I did for the company did not involve the 737 Max. That said seeing interviews in the film with Quality professionals and others, detailing how the importance of their work was gradually minimized in the name of corporate greed was not fun to watch. I can only hope that after having its company name dragged through the mud, that they can do a 180 and return to the mindset that made them the aerospace giant of the past.
Time will tell. In the meantime, click on the image below to read more about the film, and I encourage you to watch the film on Netflix.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Neither the “C” word nor the “P” word were used during the writing of this article.
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Thank you, all the best and none of the worst.