@WaqasAltaf: Thanks for the kind words. I had to rewrite the story twice to add further developments, and new stuff comes up every day.  The 787 is now grounded worldwide, and every country's version of the FAA or NTSB is doing it's own probes. Meanwhile, airlines are losing astonishing amounts of money (Poland's LOT airlines is losing $50,000 a day). Every customer is likely to end up suing.

And here's a fun story: 23,000 Boeing engineers and tech workers are voiting on whether to authorize a strike. The union points out that:

• Boeing has earned $12.6 billion in profits since 2009.
• The company has returned cash to shareholders with buybacks and a 15 percent dividend boost in that time period.
• The CEO's compensation was increased by 20% to $22.96 million.

At the root is a feeling that Boeing has chosen to emphasize cost reductions over quality and sizzle over substance. A lot of the hard feelings date back to 2005, when the engineer who headed Boeing's commercial aviation division was passed over for the CEO's job. Boeing chose the former CEO of 3M instead. 

When the engineer left, feeling that he had no future at Boeing, he was replaced by someone from sales.

Some of you might recognize the name of former Boeing engineer, because he's been in the news often over the past few years. His name is Alan Mulally, and he's the CEO at Ford (the one US automaker that didn't require a bailout).

You could say (I'm not going to, because I'd spend the next two weeks putting out the flame wars) that what Boeing did was a huge Waterfall project... when what car companies do with their models is closer to Agile (continual iteration).

The amazing thing is reading the stuff published circa 2003, which pretty much says "Hey, no problem-- Boeing's on this."

The problem is that everyone believes they're better, smarter and stronger than the last generation of bozos who failed. Plus, they have some major new advance in technology, which has completely changed the game and totally invalidated the old rules.

The good news, I guess, is that it gives consultants a continuing stream of work. If people didn't keep making the same mistakes, we might have to go out and work for a living.

@ kq4ym

Though it has missed all the deadlines, engineering imperfections are there and legal suits all around but I would love to experience how the aircraft is from the passengers' perspective once it takes off. If almost every part is redesigned and manufactured after a lot of effort, it must have a good end result from the airline's point of view.

First of all, really loved the way Boeing's situation is explained in the blog.

I didn't knew 787 was so bad. Actually it is not only the mistakes of Boeing that come in mind while understanding the situation but also we tend to compare them with Airbus's success story which makes the situation look more worst. If Boeing doesn't restore confidence of airline giants back, it will turn into what Nokia today is in the mobile device industry.

The Boeing project just lead credence to the theory that it's impossible to predict the outcome of anything complex.

Over budget, over weight, missing deadlines. All typical in any construction project as even the man on the street knows is likely.

To predict the costs, and finish time of such a large project would almost seem miraculous should Boeing have actually succeeded.

I find it amazing that everyone knows the axiom, "Remember history or you will repeat it." 

Yet, time and time again that is exactly what happens. I worked for a company that made heat-treating equipment used on the 777, and that plane also had issues that history would have pointed out.