A New Report Finds Boeing's Rockets Are Built With an Unqualified Work Force (arstechnica.com) 129
Slashdot reader echo123 shared this report from Ars Technica:
The NASA program to develop a new upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket is seven years behind schedule and significantly over budget, a new report from the space agency's inspector general finds. However, beyond these headline numbers, there is also some eye-opening information about the project's prime contractor, Boeing, and its poor quality control practices... "We found an array of issues that could hinder SLS Block 1B's readiness for Artemis IV including Boeing's inadequate quality management system, escalating costs and schedules, and inadequate visibility into the Block 1B's projected costs," states the report, signed by NASA's deputy inspector general, George A. Scott.
There are some surprising details in the report about Boeing's quality control practices at the Michoud Assembly Facility in southern Louisiana, where the Exploration Upper Stage is being manufactured. Federal observers have issued a striking number of "Corrective Action Requests" to Boeing. "According to Safety and Mission Assurance officials at NASA and DCMA officials at Michoud, Boeing's quality control issues are largely caused by its workforce having insufficient aerospace production experience," the report states. "The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that the contractor will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards."
This lack of a qualified workforce has resulted in significant program delays and increased costs. According to the new report, "unsatisfactory" welding operations resulted in propellant tanks that did not meet specifications, which directly led to a seven-month delay in the program.
There are some surprising details in the report about Boeing's quality control practices at the Michoud Assembly Facility in southern Louisiana, where the Exploration Upper Stage is being manufactured. Federal observers have issued a striking number of "Corrective Action Requests" to Boeing. "According to Safety and Mission Assurance officials at NASA and DCMA officials at Michoud, Boeing's quality control issues are largely caused by its workforce having insufficient aerospace production experience," the report states. "The lack of a trained and qualified workforce increases the risk that the contractor will continue to manufacture parts and components that do not adhere to NASA requirements and industry standards."
This lack of a qualified workforce has resulted in significant program delays and increased costs. According to the new report, "unsatisfactory" welding operations resulted in propellant tanks that did not meet specifications, which directly led to a seven-month delay in the program.
But think of the savings! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, they're unqualified, but the savings were to die for! And I mean literally to die for anyone who flies in one. MMW, the long term vision at Boeing of cutting corners and saving dimes has finally come home to roost, and I expect it will arrive in the form of some embarrassing congressional testimony for some C-suites followed by an enormous bailout package.
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There was a hearing of the Boeing CEO I saw on Youtube, where he held firm onto his position that "he did all he could for safety". Some people were born before shame was a thing I guess.
He'll leave the company with hundreds of millions though. So there is that.
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Remember Stockton Rush, whose philosophy can be described as 'the rules don't affect me'? At least, until his sight-seeing submersible imploded.
Likewise, this C-level executive means, he did all his personal morality demanded. US-ians whine about the FDA and FCC but CEOs like these reveal how little protection, American law gives to consumers.
"Bottom of the Barrel" (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to find good help these days -- when you won't pay for them.
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Where did you get the impression that Boeing doesn’t pay well?
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Re:"Bottom of the Barrel" (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, it says so right there in the statement from NASA.
But the report said the problems at Michoud are largely due to a âoelack of a sufficient number of trained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing,â which it said was âoein part due to Michoudâ(TM)s geographical location in New Orleans and lower employee compensation relative to other aerospace competitors.â
Re: "Bottom of the Barrel" (Score:4, Interesting)
A good workforce isn't just about talent, it's also about work ethic. Finding employees what about the job also means paying more than for just a warm body who will punch in. If these employees are not meeting standards for meticulousness or attention to detail or whatever metric they are failing, they need to be retrained or replaced, that wasn't happening either. Why is that? Was Boeing having problems finding qualified replacements? That generally comes back to money. Offer enough and people will relocate. Was it an issue with the supervisory team? Same set of issues, just a different company level.
It almost always comes down to the money the employer is willing to spend to attract and retain the employee they need. Even if they can't find the right candidate they should be able to grow the right people with training and mentorship on the job.... But again that costs the company money. They got what they (won't) pay for here.
You also have to stop treating them as disposable (Score:3)
It doesn't work that way. It takes time to get skilled even at jobs that look like they should be simple let alone building something like a rocket.
Think about how often a fast food joint will screw up your order and then how often they cycle people out. Now apply that to literal rocket science.
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Re: You also have to stop treating them as disposa (Score:2)
Modern mega corporations want us all to be interchangeable cogs that they can slot in anytime they feel like it after a round of mass layoffs.
They also ask want to outsource their training to some other company. They hire for "entry level" positions but then want applicants with professional experience with x system or y technology. You can't get that kind of experience if you already need to have it to get hired. Somebody has to be the one to hire you without it, and they all want that to be a previous employer.
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Where did you get the impression that Boeing doesn’t pay well?
Guess one can afford to pay well when necessary jobs in safety and oversight are never even created, yes?
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No one wants to work anymore!
We pay $15 an hour for rotating 10 hour shifts in a metal building in Louisiana without air conditioning. Overtime is also mandatory.
Hey boss man, these parts out of tolerance and don't fit. Should I write up a non conformance report and tag them?
We're not paying you to do paperwork and you're throwing money away. Take those parts to the grinder and make them fit!
Re: "Bottom of the Barrel" (Score:2)
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Boeing led the push for a short-term workforce, 20 years ago: Sell some planes, hire workers, build planes, fire workers, repeat. Every batch of planes requires a whole new workforce, that's not practical if every employee needs to be taught the rules, so they aren't. New employees don't know how to contradict management so managers can ignore tasks such as inspections or QA reports, and ignore problems such as incomplete assembly and underpaid workers.
DEI hires (Score:1, Troll)
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Re: DEI hires (Score:2)
Re: DEI hires (Score:1, Insightful)
They were subject to a hostile takeover. (Score:2, Troll)
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The real mystery is how the Republican Party convinced so many people that "diversity is the problem" is an okay thing to say.
Because diversity keeps disproving the white superiority myth.
Re: DEI hires (Score:2)
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Re: DEI hires (Score:2)
You mean like discriminating against rednecks? (Score:2)
Re:DEI hires (Score:4, Insightful)
Neither will putting MBAs in charge of a company whose sole existence is based on engineering. Which I suspect has far more to do with Boeing's downfall.
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I get the distinct feeling that restaurants spit in your food a lot.
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Re: DEI hires (Score:5, Interesting)
Boeing should have restricted the DEI hires to cleaning bathrooms and sweeping floors, maybe picking up trash inside & out and various general no tech labor where they can not cause disasters
Restrictions?
You mean like they imposed on Elon/SpaceX when he tried to comply with a US Government mandate stating he couldn’t hire non-US citizens for certain positions, and then labeling him a “racist” for not hiring non-US citizens in certain positions?
Hell of a Woke Catch-22 when the Government marketing team is rooting for and against you.
Political hiring practices do help. (Score:2)
That's why we had them. True story - from my mouth to your made-up Gods' ear (I'm an atheist).
Ergo, your statement is false.
It's not Just Boeing that has this Problem (Score:5, Informative)
To be upfront, I'm not a Boeing Fanguy or with to defend them. But keeping good quality aerospace welders is not just a problem at Boeing. I work for an Aerospace company and we buy heat exchangers from a specialized small company that makes units specifically for us. We started seeing very crappy welding from them about 6 years ago that was so bad we could not accept the units. Come to find out that their good welders had been hired away by SpaceX for far higher salaries than they had been making and they had to go with new guys who did not have welding experience.
SpaceX appears to have reset the market for what companies pay for aerospace qualified welders. And people I hope are starting to realize just how much time and training it takes to become an aerospace grade welder and the fact that when it leaves your business it is not easily replaceable.
Re:It's not Just Boeing that has this Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
A tad pricey? Yup. The value of avoiding cratering the company as jet after jet after spacecraft go nose-down into the ground? Priceless.
Not every worker is completely fungible, despite what business bros might think.
I’m actually something of a Boeing fan, but it’s been nothing but bad news for them for years now, much of it clearly of their own making.
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But that whole scholarship thing would eat into the C-suite executives' bonuses and shareholder's payouts. That's completely unacceptable in today's unrestrained capitalism!
Laying off the higher paid workers is a much faster way to boost profits and stock price, so that's the C-suite executive's preferred plan these days.
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You give community college scholarships to 100 promising students, to get welding qualification, with the requirement that they work for Boeing 2 years after graduation
While this is correct and sound advice, training your own personnel, none of the modern companies do this. They're poorly led.
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That is a very reasonable idea. But to see that requires you to be interested in fixing problems and making a good product. For many business people, these are outdated concepts and have no place in management.
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From what I hear about conditions at SpaceX, it shouldn't be too hard to tempt people away. No amount of money is worth putting up with that kind of abuse for.
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and they had to go with new guys who did not have welding experience.
That's not a thing. There are welders looking for work all the time. They just wouldn't pay a normally competitive wage, let alone one that would compete with SpaceX.
Nonsense (Score:1)
Freedom and democracy make qualified workers. Automatically. Not like those other countries. That's why we in the West make sure to periodically remind other countries by killing their young people.
Boeing literally attacked its workforce (Score:3, Insightful)
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"All non-management types can be swapped out indiscriminately. None of "those" people are worth a penny more than market rate. Now, on to business that matters."
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"All non-management types can be swapped out indiscriminately. None of "those" people are worth a penny more than market rate. Now, on to business that matters."
The thing is, management can be swapped out indiscriminately as we've seen Boeing go through several CEOs in recent times... so they assume everyone is as disposable. It is the curse of terminal stupidity to assume no-one is smarter than you.
It's like changing the name of a nightclub after several people were murdered out front... but not bothering to clean up the brains off the pavement.
Mandates (Score:2, Troll)
It's like the Secret Service (also risk-analysis professionals) - when given a choice to take an experimental medical procedure or take early retirement they dipped out.
Boeing absolutely had some top engineers from the previous generation. Their wisdom was to anticipate everything that could go wrong and then some.
The generational knowledge-transfer simply can't be codified in any stack of documents that anybody can possibly read while also doing their job. You can replace an accountant pretty easily but n
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The generational knowledge-transfer simply can't be codified in any stack of documents that anybody can possibly read while also doing their job. You can replace an accountant pretty easily but not a lifer engineer.
Both my parents are accountants. Replacing my dad when he retired took 5 people. Replacing my mom took 3. Accountants get the "generational knowledge" as well.
But yeah, keeping the knowledge alive is something Boeing didn't do.
Or maybe they kept the knowledge of how to run under cost-plus contracts alive, when you need to behave substantially different under fixed cost contracts.
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You still bitching about vaccines four years later?
no manufacturing (Score:2)
Corrective Action Request - CAR (Score:2)
You get a CAR! YOU get a CAR! EVERYONE gets a CAR!
Business as usual... (Score:2)
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Built with unqualified work force? (Score:2)
Not a new phenomena (Score:2)
Bernie Taupin wrote in the early 70's
And all the science, I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
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You think Boeing pays low wages?
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Informative)
Boeing contracted everything out to save a buck. This is the result.
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Interesting)
According to a popular theory of business ethics, if Boeing can maximize profits by creating a dangerous product, management is ethically obligated to do so. And here the thing about the idea that loss of reputation will impair future revenue -- future revenue is *discounted* in economics. Also, in aerospace or defense you merge with other businesses so that you're too big to fail.
This is actually a relatively novel ideology; it didn't exist in the glory days of the Space Race; it originated around 1970 and became popular in the 80s, which coincided with a collapse in US industry's ability to do major projects without obscene cost overruns and schedule slips.
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Well, clearly perverted incentives all up the line. A sign of fundamental failure that can likely not be fixed.
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Boeing contracted everything out to save a buck. This is the result.
Boeing has contracted things out as far back as 747 And, I'm sure even back in the prop and piston days too. In many ways, aviation was then -- and still is -- a mega "cottage industry." Cottage in the sense that inevitably each company tends to specialize in a thing or two. It's just these "cottages" are called "Fuji Heavy Industries" and things of that nature.
No sir. The Boeing failures aren't all on sub-contracting. It's always on Boeing for failure to manage the proper herding of cats, mixed in wi
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What is needed is a culture shift. Don't look at making the most bucks the quickest. Make the best airplane in the world, and people will beat a path to your door.
Put another way, build 'em right, and people will buy lots of them, making you lots of money. But that is a long game that takes time. Who's got time to make a good product these days? Amirite? Just fleece the buyer (the airlines, and thus, you the customer) and run with the cash.
What you're talking about isn't just a culture shift for Boeing, but a culture shift for the entire business world in the United States, and perhaps the entire world. There is a fundamental problem with the business world right now. Short-term gains are priority one and there are *NO* other priorities that may supersede it. Not ethical concerns. Not concerns about your product causing death or dismemberment. Not concerns about slave labor. Profit in the near-term. That's it. That's the only thing that matte
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PS: You may want to examine the old Boeing before you keep pontificating. Get on youtube and find "21st Century Jet." It's a 4-part documentary on designing and building the 777.
You'll see how they managed parts and pieces of airplane from all over, and how diverse the workforce was (30 years ago!) and what a gem they built.
Maybe then you'll realize it isn't one single thing killing Boeing -- and many other companies and institutions -- it's a combination of factors, and they do include DEI, CRT, Marxism
Boeing doesn't pay low wages. Contract firms do. (Score:2)
Boeing destroyed itself via profit focus (Score:2)
You don't have to propagate the AC troll's vacuous Subject. And "arguing" with the empty sock puppet is even less reasonable...
Funny old story about TI and Boeing way back when, but I don't need the bad mod points, so.
Re: Here we go (Score:3)
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The New Orleans facility built all of the Space Shuttle exterior tanks and all of the 1st stages of the Saturn 5.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"MAF is one of the largest manufacturing plants in the world with 43 environmentally controlled acres—174,000 m2 (1,870,000 sq ft)—under one roof, and it employs more than 4,200 people. From September 1961 to the end of the Apollo program in December 1972 the site was utilized by Chrysler Corporation to build the first stages of the Saturn I and Saturn
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The actual problem tends to be DEI though. And it's not just Boeing, or even just US companies with this problem. TSMC's Arizona project is on third or fourth attempt now, and all previous ones crashed into the wall of DEI hiring mandates that come with money.
And there aren't nearly enough qualified workers in DEI categories to meet quotas. There's a reason why if you're in these fields, aren't a complete moron and your parents fucked correctly, you can demand a hilarious DEI premium over europeans and asia
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The actual problem tends to be DEI though.
Nope. Companies who have a diverse workforce have higher profits [forbes.com] than non-diverse companies (2018). This continues to be shown [marketwatch.com] (2020). Diverse teams perform better [forbes.com]. (2022)
TSMC's Arizona project is on third or fourth attempt now, and all previous ones crashed into the wall of DEI hiring mandates that come with money.
Wrong again. TSMC is not providing the needed information to build the plant [businessinsider.com] and is claiming they need to bring in 500 Taiwanese engnineers due to su
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Fixed that for ya.
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
The very purpose of DEI is to hire unqualified people. Nothing else.
Re: Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
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Of course, but you are not allowed to say that out loud.
You can say it as loud as you want, it doesn't make it true though.
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Interesting)
Companies who have a diverse workforce have higher profits
this claim is based on a single McKinsey consulting company report and cannot be repeated in real world conditions, ie. they got cause and effect mixed up. I think its a bad faith representation of misinterpreted data.
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Nope. Companies who have a diverse workforce have higher profits than non-diverse companies (2018).
I feel like having higher profits is not the same thing as building better rockets. In act, one of the fastest, most efficient ways to increase profits is to reduce the quality of product being produced, and get rid of the most experienced, qualified engineers.
You know, like Boing as done.
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The actual problem tends to be DEI though.
Nope. Companies who have a diverse workforce have higher profits [forbes.com] than non-diverse companies (2018).
You're *probably* right, but to play devil's advocate for a moment, the two statements are not *necessarily* contradictory. It is entirely possible for diverse workforces to be more effective, but for artificially increasing diversity to still make workforces less effective.
Companies that, for whatever reason, have qualified candidates that are more diverse (whether by race, age, religion, gender, etc.) for their profession likely gain an advantage from having a diversity of viewpoints resulting from the d
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"TSMC's culture is not adaptable to the U.S. "
The article you cite notes that TSMC's culture may not even be adaptable to Taiwan:
"Taiwanese managers were reminded not to ask employees why they were taking sick leave, or ask female job applicants about their plans to have children — an illegal yet common question in Taiwan."
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Say you owned a company and had money to hire one product manager who was going to be your top person in charge of everything. It's unreasonable to ask "Hey are you going to have a kid and disappear for a year or more? Maybe never come back?" Banning this question doesn't make it's relevance go away, it just pushes the feelings underground.
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I was sitting in a diversity training class at Ford in the late 1990’s when the presenters aired this same statement. Our manager, who was a Brit on loan from Jaguar, offered the following statement:
“So you’re saying that if I was looking for the best and most popular four door family sedan, I should look at a picture of the design teams from the Big Three, and the one that was most diverse would be the number one car?”
He was told that was correct.
He then said that it was a bit of a
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Your first claim is a long debunked lie by McKinsey. They made a fake study that every left wing propagandist has since spammed as a source.
Problem: there have been countless attempts to replicate the study, and they all demonstrated either negative effect from DEI or no effect. No positive effect has ever been replicated. In scientific circles, that means the study is proven false. You and your propagandist colleagues are spreading misinformation when repeating this as factual, rather than false and debunk
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The actual problem tends to be DEI though. And it's not just Boeing, or even just US companies with this problem. TSMC's Arizona project is on third or fourth attempt now
TSMC is trying to build a facility that uses millions of gallons of water in an area famous for having little water. The tax breaks must be that massive.
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And that has nothing to do with problems it's having.
Imagine how bad the problems must be if they're making the water problem you mention be so small it's irrelevant in comparison.
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unqualified DEI students become unqualified MDs
Source this, show us proof of "unqualified" students graduating with MDs from medical schools and then makign it through residency.
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Insightful)
My experience with bad doctors isn't that they aren't smart enough. Anyone who gets through medical school and residency is going to be plenty smart. The problem with a bad doctor is *character*. A smart dishonest person will be a bad doctor. A smart arrogant person will be a bad doctor. A smart moral coward will be a bad doctor.
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Sometimes you have smart, well-trained, well-intentioned person who works for an organization that doesn't *let* him do a good job. Then he just has to do his best, but the danger is when they start rationalizing substandard care.
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My experience with bad doctors isn't that they aren't smart enough.
I completely agree. It has nothing to do with their actual intelligence, it has more to do with their motivations... and many went into medicine thinking of high pay and job security.
My experience with bad/most doctors is that they are checklist doctors. They fill out all of the checklists and do what is considered correct for the indications on the checklists. This is great for gunshot wounds and stabbings where the cause is direct and obvious. For less obvious stuff, the cause is never found until the can
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unqualified DEI students become unqualified MDs
Source this, show us proof of "unqualified" students graduating with MDs from medical schools and then makign it through residency.
Show me the proof that healthcare quality, is actually sustained or improving under DEI hiring practices.
If we’re going to debate this, lets do it with qualified and valid measurements. Before and after DEI is perfectly valid no matter how people feel about DEI.
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Sure you start with "qualified and valid measurements" of what DEI means, concretely, how to quantify it, and then link that to unqualified doctors (specifically MD or DO that completed residency)
Start with Medical School Admission boards and show me students say graduating with medical degrees without say passing an MCAT or getting by without passing the standard qualifications for being a doctor.
Show me the proof that healthcare quality, is actually sustained or improving under DEI hiring practices.
This is pointless and leads me to believe you don't actually have the data because OP made a very *specific* cl
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I literally included it in my post. Like most concern trolls hitting this post, you missed it.
Google Killer King and be educated. This isn't a hypothetical. People pushing DEI have a lot of blood on their hands.
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There are 0 links in your post
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Correct. That's how I vet concern trolls. If you actually care about the answer, you'll type that into your favourite search engine.
If you're just here to troll, you'll do what you just did.
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Killer King remains the elephant in the room.
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Sorta? It sure seems like a complicated story. Hospitals in poor areas have problems.
I read the Politico and NPR pieces theres nothing in there that backs up your very bold claim so.... i dunno, seems pretty bad faith all aroundon your part.
Also those stories were written 7 years ago so i dunno, if you want people to buy the shit you're selling you better sell it better.
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I'm not selling you on anything. I'm offering observations of reality, and analysis. I'm taking the horse to the water.
Whether you choose to imbibe the water, walk away or shit in the creek is your choice.
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Ahh a real scientist i see. Do you think the earth is flat too? Looks pretty flat to me.
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I'm not sure how far someone as blinded by their lack of wit as you can see, considering that you're so incapable of sight that you can't see the horizon.
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What do mean? The horizon is a flat line. Flat horizon, earth is flat.
I'm not selling you on anything. I'm offering observations of reality, and analysis.
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The last refuge of the witless is to simply repeat their previous statement as if it wasn't thoroughly mocked in the response.
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All the purple prose in the world can't hide the fact that you are intellectually bankrupt, your movement has no real ideas left, just seething ignorance and revanchism.
Literally this fucking guy [knowyourmeme.com]
But hey, keep screaming about 7 year old stories about DEI doctors murdering people that has no easily findable evidence (if you had actually googles what you smugly tell people to google the first page has NOTHING to do with the hospital, so the fucking go). Gonna go great in november for you loser. juiceless.
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It's always hilarious to me how witless when caught in their lack of wit end up projecting their deficiencies. It's universal.
The funniest part is that I couldn't be that wojak if I tried. Wrong neurological circuitry. I'm literally the opposite of that guy because of how my brain is measurably wired.
Unlike witless "there's no good evidence, as long as I ignore all the evidence because evidence is racist and white supremacist and goes against my alternative ways of knowing" nutbags.
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The actual problem tends to be DEI though
We know this is science, because it can explain everything.
Re: Here we go (Score:3)
Just Plain old Incompetence (Score:2)