Boeing whistleblower says plane parts had serious defects
A former quality inspector for Spirit AeroSystems claims he found many defects on parts due for shipping.
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Gets scarier
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My first job in civvy street was working for a company who supplied airline companies with seating, galleys and toilets. That was all about speed, speed, speed. Airliner companies had limited time slots for the fitment schedule so it was more important to get stuff built and then sort out QC problems on site during installation, than getting stuff perfect at the production facility. There were financial penalties for the company if the installation work overran the alloted times.
I moved into QC after that..... first with an engineering company which specialised in one-offs, small batch and prototype work for the aviation, marine and military industries....then with a plastic moulding company which did a lot of high volume, low cost products for various industries.
The contrast between the two was very marked. The engineering company cut a lot of corners and cheapskated on materials, equipment, machinery and workforce. I was convinced that the QC dept was only there to satisfy the requirement to have BS5750/ISO9001 accreditation, otherwise the boss would've ditched us in a heartbeat. One example was when they bought a second hand Mitutoyo CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) but the boss refused to pay for the expensive granite table it should have sat on. Instead he had a cowboy outfit install a slate one from what we reckon was previously a snooker table. It cracked during the installation but he went ahead with it anyway. The QA Manager and I both left soon after and they eventually folded because the Materials Manager (with the consent of the boss) had been buying in cheaper, substandard materials and got caught out by a BSI inspection. The daft twat had two materials ordering books....one for the actual materials he ordered and the other fictional Jackanory one showing what should have been ordered. The BSI inspectors found both.
The plastics company were far more professional. e.g. They invested in SPC software (Statistical Process Control) to maintain quality in production, to predict when machinery required maintainance and schedule down time to do it and also to help with the ordering in of raw materials. Back then it was rare and expensive and not much used in such a production environment.
I moved into QC after that..... first with an engineering company which specialised in one-offs, small batch and prototype work for the aviation, marine and military industries....then with a plastic moulding company which did a lot of high volume, low cost products for various industries.
The contrast between the two was very marked. The engineering company cut a lot of corners and cheapskated on materials, equipment, machinery and workforce. I was convinced that the QC dept was only there to satisfy the requirement to have BS5750/ISO9001 accreditation, otherwise the boss would've ditched us in a heartbeat. One example was when they bought a second hand Mitutoyo CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine) but the boss refused to pay for the expensive granite table it should have sat on. Instead he had a cowboy outfit install a slate one from what we reckon was previously a snooker table. It cracked during the installation but he went ahead with it anyway. The QA Manager and I both left soon after and they eventually folded because the Materials Manager (with the consent of the boss) had been buying in cheaper, substandard materials and got caught out by a BSI inspection. The daft twat had two materials ordering books....one for the actual materials he ordered and the other fictional Jackanory one showing what should have been ordered. The BSI inspectors found both.
The plastics company were far more professional. e.g. They invested in SPC software (Statistical Process Control) to maintain quality in production, to predict when machinery required maintainance and schedule down time to do it and also to help with the ordering in of raw materials. Back then it was rare and expensive and not much used in such a production environment.
My brother worked in insurance, his job was to evaluate new builds for insurance purposes, when Britain stopped using Sheffield steel & started importing from China it was noted that Chinese steel was far inferior to British, as a result when my brother inspected a new build he would not issue an insurance certificate if it had used Chinese steel, some companies produced falsified receipts to make out that British steel had been used.
He was told by the big bosses to stop being so picky, there was one building in Inverness that my brother flatly refused to insure despite the threat of losing his job, they were going to send another valuer to issue the certificate but the building caught fire & was totally destroyed, the steel just warped & was declared by the fire Chief as the main reason for the quick collapse of the building, fortunately the building was still under construction so there were no people working in it.
He was told by the big bosses to stop being so picky, there was one building in Inverness that my brother flatly refused to insure despite the threat of losing his job, they were going to send another valuer to issue the certificate but the building caught fire & was totally destroyed, the steel just warped & was declared by the fire Chief as the main reason for the quick collapse of the building, fortunately the building was still under construction so there were no people working in it.