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Strengthening Safety & Quality

What happened

On Jan. 5, 2024, a mid-exit door (MED) plug detached from the left side of a 737-9 carrying 171 passengers and crew, leading to a rapid decompression. The pilots and cabin crew brought the airplane and everyone onboard safely back to the ground.

Boeing fully cooperated with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in their investigations.  

What we did

Boeing took immediate action in January 2024 to ensure the safety of our fleet and production operations for all of our airplanes.

Then, we gathered feedback from our employees, regulator, customers and independent experts to develop a comprehensive plan that strengthens our safety management, quality assurance and safety culture across our production systems.

Boeing’s Safety & Quality Plan generally aligns to four focus areas: investing in workforce training, simplifying plans and processes, eliminating defects, and elevating our safety and quality culture. The plan also sets forth measures to continuously monitor and manage the health of our production system.

We are committed to this plan and to continuous improvement, which has helped make commercial aviation the safest mode of transportation.

Our Safety & Quality Plan

Boeing’s Safety & Quality Plan generally aligns to four focus areas: investing in workforce training, simplifying plans and processes, eliminating defects, and elevating our safety and quality culture. The plan also sets forth measures to continuously monitor and manage the health of our production system.

Updated: 11/25/2025

Invest in Workforce Training icon
  • Conducted mandatory Product Safety and Quality Training for all employees.
  • Strengthened training for mechanics and quality inspectors with an enhanced support system, including workplace coaches, peer trainers, and skill enhancement centers.
  • Added more than 600 hours of new curriculum to training programs, including quality proficiency and Safety Management System (SMS) Positive Safety Culture.
  • Enrolled more than 5,000 employees in our Foundational Training Center.
  • Activated enhanced training programs around six critical manufacturing skills: hydraulic tubing, torque, sealing, drilling, bonding and grounding, and interiors.
  • Launched Leaders in Foundational Training (LiFT) – a four-week immersive training program, mandatory for all managers.
  • Digitized the foundational training system to strengthen employee performance tracking and their completion of critical tasks.
  • Deployed revised removals and stamping training for production teammates.
Simplify Plans and Processes icon
  • Instituted random quality audits of documented removals in high frequency areas to ensure compliance to process.
  • Simplified removal process instructions, reducing length of the governing document by 50% while increasing clarity and enabling compliance for employees.
  • Mapped and prepared thousands of governance documents and work instructions for revision.
  • Released more than 4,300 simplified installation plans into airplane program production and began launching “how to” videos to supplement instructions.
  • Performed dozens of internal design build audits across airplane programs to determine further opportunities for production improvements and revised standards for inspectors.
  • Updated “stamping” system for mechanics and quality inspectors to improve functionality and display employee names on stamps for completed work.
Eliminate Defects icon
  • Reduced defects in 737 fuselage assembly at Spirit AeroSystems by an average of 45% since March 2024, through increasing inspection points at build locations and implementing customer quality approval process.
  • Piloted tool control centralized ownership in targeted 737 and 787 final assembly areas improving compliance and reducing tool loss by 85%.
  • Launched tool control RFID pilot on the 737 and 787 programs adding unique RFID tags to thousands of tools.
  • Developed embedded management and metrics for FOD (foreign object debris) prevention in critical work areas.
  • Launched work instruction adherence checks as a standard operating rhythm in production to ensure mechanics and inspectors are proficient and resourced.
  • Implemented a new Work in Process (WIP) system and procedure across all Commercial Airplanes final assembly areas that tracks and secures parts for manufacturing work that is not yet complete to prevent loss or improper use.
Elevate Safety and Quality Culture icon
  • We have completed tracking the closure of action items in commercial airplane production based on employee feedback during the 2024 Quality Stand Down sessions.
  • Launched quarterly, manager-led safety and quality events across Commercial Airplane programs to share ideas and strengthen culture.
  • Implemented more than 1,300 Employee Involvement Teams across Airplane Programs and Fabrication, to bring teammates from different work disciplines together to raise and solve issues, ask questions, and offer assistance.
  • Invested in improvements to the Speak Up system to strengthen confidentiality, ecourage reporting and keep employees who submit reports informed of the status and resolution of their report.
  • Assessed over 5,000 airplane production line moves with Move Ready Hazard assessment process, or "move ready" criteria, helping reduce traveled work by 75% at rollout for the 737 program and 60% on average across all airplane programs since March 2024.

 

Watch: Highlighting enhancements throughout 737 MAX Final Assembly

Highlighting enhancements throughout 737 MAX Final Assembly

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A significant component of our Safety & Quality Plan is the identification of six key performance indicators (KPIs) focused on safety and production health:

  • Employee proficiency measures share of employees currently staffed who are deemed proficient in core skills.
  • Notice of Escape (NoE) rework hours measures time performing rework due to non-conforming work from Fabrication and suppliers.
  • Supplier shortages measures shortages per day from Fabrication and suppliers.
  • Rework hours per airplane measures time spent performing rework in Final Assembly.
  • Travelers at factory rollout measures unfinished jobs traveling from Final Assembly.
  • Ticketing performance measures quality escapes per ticketed airplane prior to delivery.

Each KPI has defined criteria that help identify areas of potential risk to our operations and trigger corrective action through our Safety Management System (SMS). These metrics have helped Boeing conduct more targeted safety risk assessments in priority areas and maintain production health.

Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act (ACSAA)

We have developed detailed plans and deliverables for each recommendation from the FAA’s Expert Review Panel, which was convened per the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act (ACSAA) of 2020. Our actions, which we continue to share with the FAA as they oversee our efforts, fall in the following areas:
  • Launched SMS and Positive Safety Culture training for new Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) Manufacturing and Quality employees.
  • Introduced Leaders in Foundational Training (LiFT) curriculum for managers across BCA, including SMS and Positive Safety Culture material.
  • Improved our Speak Up reporting channel to increase transparency, strengthen confidentiality and create a better user experience for those who report.  
  • Submitted our Commercial Airplanes SMS Implementation Plan to the FAA, which includes actions Boeing will take to transition from its FAA-accepted voluntary SMS.
  • Improved our safety risk management tool to allow those who have identified a potential product safety hazard to enter the data and receive simple and straightforward guidance for how to evaluate the hazard and its risk level. 
  • Deployed required safety and quality training to more than 160,000 employees focused on their role in identifying and reporting potential product hazards – anything that might compromise the ability to deliver safe, compliant and conforming products and services.
  • Enhanced our SMS Champion Program, where employees learn how Boeing’s SMS ensures the safety of our products and services and then help to increase understanding and implementation of the SMS in their work areas.
  • Added ODA unit member capacity and improved the future ODA pipeline to address retirements and to meet current needs.
  • Strengthened the ODA system by completing the re-organization of unit members to give them an independent reporting structure aligned with their functional engineering organizations. This change included the addition of dozens of new senior managers aligned to support the strengthening of the ODA system.
  • Increased technical excellence in our engineering designs and meeting certification requirements through documentation and use of more than 2,700 design practices that incorporate lessons learned and best practices over Boeing’s long history.
  • Benefited from engineering ODA unit members helping create and disseminate design practices and participate in technical design reviews, where frank and transparent discussions are held among engineers and independent expert reviewers. 
  • Saw continued improvement in the percentage of ODA unit members who reported being able to perform their delegated duties free from interference, based on survey results.
  • Created and filled a new position of Human Factors Functional Chief Engineer.
  • Human factors are considered throughout major airplane Technical Design Reviews, including Preliminary Design Review and Critical Design Review, customer introductions, feature development, and airplane development program safety analysis processes.

Examples of Progress