On May 30, Boeing  (NYSE: BA)'s CEO Dave Calhoun met with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Mike Whitaker and submitted a plan aimed at enhancing the company's manufacturing safety and quality through training, process optimization, and defect elimination.

Since January of this year, the aerospace manufacturer has been under multiple investigations following an incident where a door panel of a 737 Max fell off during flight. In February, the FAA issued a directive requiring Boeing to submit a plan within 90 days to improve its culture and practices to align with FAA standards.

The plan aims to address issues highlighted in a congressional commission report released in February by FAA audits and expert panels. The report criticized Boeing's safety culture, citing insufficient and confusing safety processes, lack of awareness among ordinary employees about company-wide safety plans, and revealed potential retaliatory measures against employees reporting safety concerns.

Boeing and the FAA will measure certain metrics to assess the manufacturer's improvement process, including the proportion of employees proficient in core skills, time taken to rectify supplier and Boeing's own defects, daily shortages of components, unfinished work when aircraft leave the factory, and errors discovered during final inspections before delivery to customers.

During a press conference in Washington D.C., FAA Administrator Whitaker stated that this is about systemic change and there's still a lot of work to be done. These metrics will provide us with a way to monitor their health in the coming months.

Earlier this year, the FAA intensified its oversight of Boeing by increasing the number of oversight personnel within the aircraft manufacturer's facilities, a supervision expected to continue.

Currently, the FAA limits the production of Boeing Max aircraft to 38 per month. However, due to slowed production to improve quality, the company's current output is below this limit. Whitaker mentioned that there is no specific date yet for lifting the production restriction.

Following the meeting, the FAA also announced that its senior leadership will meet with Boeing weekly to review the progress of performance indicators outlined in the plan. Whitaker himself will meet with Boeing CEO Calhoun quarterly, with the next meeting scheduled for September in Seattle.

Whitaker emphasized that the focus will be on inspection rather than audit—more hands-on work, engaging with frontline personnel to accurately understand what's happening.