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"Willingness" Without Authority: Boeing's AS9100 Rhetoric Collapses Under Scrutiny

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How Voluntary Language Was Used to Mask a Non-Optional Obligation—and What an Independent Shareholder Review Found on the Factory Floor

WEST HAVEN, Conn. - s4story -- In a June 27, 2024 Reuters interview following heightened regulatory scrutiny, Boeing Senior Vice President for Quality Elizabeth Lund stated that the company was "willing" to obtain AS9100 certification. The comment was presented as evidence of cooperation and reform. In reality, it revealed a deeper and more troubling contradiction—one rooted in a misuse of authority, language, and accountability.

"Willingness" has a precise meaning. It exists only where a party, of its own free will, agrees to do something it otherwise has the right to refuse. Willingness presumes freedom of choice. Where no such right exists, invoking willingness is not a virtue—it is a misrepresentation.

Boeing did not have the right to exercise willingness with respect to AS9100.

AS9100 is the foundational quality management system standard for aerospace manufacturing. It is not optional, aspirational, or discretionary. It is the minimum expectation for organizations producing safety-critical aircraft and components. Framing compliance as a voluntary act recasts an obligation as a favor and attempts to convert baseline responsibility into perceived leadership.

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The hypocrisy is magnified by Boeing's long-standing role inside the accreditation ecosystem itself. Boeing executives have served on ANSI and ANAB boards—entities responsible for governance and oversight of accreditation and certification frameworks. While Boeing has demanded accredited AS9100 compliance from its global supplier base, it simultaneously portrayed its own certification as something it could choose to pursue at a time of its choosing.

That asymmetry is not rhetorical—it is structural.

Following Ms. Lund's remarks, DARYL GUBERMAN, a quality, and accreditation expert with more than 40 years of experience, and a Boeing shareholder, conducted an independent, first-hand review of Boeing operations in October 2024. Mr. Guberman visited Boeing facilities in Everett, Renton, Auburn, and Northfield to assess whether the company's public claims aligned with on-the-ground reality.

What he observed was deeply troubling.

According to Mr. Guberman, the workforce across multiple locations appeared to be in a state of disarray. Front-line personnel demonstrated little to no awareness of AS9100 as a governing quality system, and there was widespread confusion—or complete absence—of understanding regarding internal auditing, corrective action systems, and management review fundamentals. These are not advanced concepts; they are core elements of any functioning AS9100-compliant organization.

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The disconnect between executive messaging and factory-floor reality raises serious questions. A company cannot credibly claim "willingness" to comply with a standard that its workforce is neither trained in nor operating under. Nor can compliance be retroactively asserted through public statements while systemic quality knowledge appears absent at the operational level.

In safety-critical industries, language matters. When obligation is framed as choice, and duty is recast as goodwill, accountability erodes. Boeing's use of "willingness" was not evidence of reform—it was an admission that compliance had been treated as negotiable.

Willingness implies discretion. Boeing had none.

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