Boeing recently fired its CEO and other top management. The CEO had a degree in accounting and prior history was mainly in marketing and finance. Widely known now that the quality control fell off a cliff and advice of quality control managers was ignored. I remember when Boeing had an engineer as CEO, as does Airbus presently, and none of these problems were happening. Four of Boeings first 5 CEOs were engineers by training running the company for 46 of first 70 years. As mentioned on these threads there is so much offloading of skills seeking cost efficiency in the auto industry that Quality often seems Job 2. Boeing is only today's example.
Zarlenga, current North American Stellantis head has background in finance and "gaining market share". Didn't see anything about quality control. Tavaras, Stellantis CEO has automotive background and some auto racing background, so maybe some engineering skills. The industry today is all about market share, cost efficiency (cutting) and cheaper labor. There is little if any talk about quality control although the CEOs will say that is a priority. Remember when Ford said, "Quality was Job 1"? Even the vaunted Japanese auto manufacturing quality doesn't seem like the earlier days when anyone on the assembly line could ring a bell and shut down the entire process because they saw a defect in the product. There is a Japanese term for continuous improvement called Kaizen. This was a big topic in business school several decades ago in manufacturing, I don't hear it mentioned anymore. I think the I6 HO and SO engines will be a big improvement but they are driven more by the EPA and gov't regulation vs outright innovation.. but whatever it takes.
I'm reminded that these forums often feature consumer problems, quality issues, and that the good products don't get mentioned too much. Many of us have been happy with our past RAM trucks. I am hopeful about the new RAMs and that the right people are still running the important stuff and hardware and software engineers are driven by Quality One. Didn't mean to get so far off track
Looking forward to a new Limited.