What stands out about Boeing's mistakes is how easy it is for laypersons to understand the mistakes. Relying on only one sensor, no redundancy? Anyone who has stood up a service on the cloud will be astounded that Boeing made this mistake. We run 3 or more copies of everything to make sure we can tolerate failures. Computers making an automated action while making it hard for humans to override? Again, astounding mistake (MCAS). Fixing hardware defects using software? Again, unfathomable how Boeing could have made such a mistake. Would anyone here buy a computer that overheats and catches fire unless monitored and controlled using software? That would be very unusual indeed.
There are lots of very smart people at Boeing. If laypersons can recognize these mistakes then there must have been hundreds or thousands of engineers at Boeing who also recognized these mistakes. But they didn't speak up. I see this as evidence of a cultural problem.
Do you work at a company where the boss discourages you from speaking up about potential problems, and expects you to just do what you're told to do? If so your company could be the next Boeing.
Aside from that, having a single point of failure in some component isn't necessarily unconscionable, you just make sure the system as a whole can handle the loss of the affected component.
That is a thing. It's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world provided it works. E.g., the F-117 cannot be flown without a computer constantly adjusting flight surfaces -- the plane isn't stable. The other decisions are definitely intolerable.
The whole thing smacks of corner-cutting in the worst way.
There are lots of very smart people at Boeing. If laypersons can recognize these mistakes then there must have been hundreds or thousands of engineers at Boeing who also recognized these mistakes. But they didn't speak up. I see this as evidence of a cultural problem.
Do you work at a company where the boss discourages you from speaking up about potential problems, and expects you to just do what you're told to do? If so your company could be the next Boeing.