fdr
21st Apr 2023, 22:50
"It's Deja view, all over again"
(sorry yogi)
DEJA VU (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-shares-tumble-parts-issue-halts-deliveries-some-737-maxs-2023-04-14/)
As reported on FR24: A sub-contractor of Spirit Aerosystems used a “non-standard manufacturing process” that affected some of the attachment points for the fitting between the 737-7, 737-8, 737-10, and P-8 fuselage and vertical fin. Approximately 50 undelivered aircraft are affected and nearly all 737 MAX aircraft built since 2019 will need rework.
Now, that echoes the debacle of Ducommon's ring frame saga, of around 2003, where if you can recall, a routine QA audit with a few Boeing QA auditors visited the sub-contractor Ducommon, in Downey CA, who were manufacturing ring frames that hold the fuselage sections together at various stations. The production approval that supported the TCDS specified that these were CNC milled parts, and so the QA guys were surprised to find no CNC on the premises, but there were teams of mechanics standing around formers coaxing aluminium parts into eye pleasing shape. One assumes that the hammering of the part into shape instead of using CNC was some form of shot peening or surface something. What it wasn't was a compliant component. These parts contaminated a very large number of the B737 NGs built to that date, and so of course, those responsible to ensure that the parts complied with their design and process.... ended up sacking a few of their QA people who had discovered the issue.
Well done Boeing. Same attitude, different day going into 2019 and the B737Max accidents.
Or B787... (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/boeing-qa-manager-whistleblower-reveals-thousands-parts-eastman/)
The sacked QA inspectors sued Boeing for wrongful dismissal (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/11/flight-risk-3/), and as it is the USA, where jurisprudence is what it is, the QA inspectors lost to Boeing in the courts. 'Xlent. Did Boeing remove the bogus parts? They did repairs in situ to the aircraft, this is the Boeing that messed about with military contracts, and did sack the lady involved with that, out of fear of being banned as a supplier to the US DOD. Phil Condit took his retirement amid the scandals at that time, and Boeing went.... back to the future.
The counter argument that the 3 QA engineers in the 2003 event were using the issues as industrial leverage appear as much a routine disparagement of a reporting party as ever, and in the context of the 20 years since the B737 ring frame saga started, it appears that there might just have been some substance to the issues raised by the QA engineers. It is not a nice story, that's for sure.
One wonders whether Boeing will repeat the disgusting behaviour of 2003 where they played the player, not the ball, and got away with it by the obsequience of the FAA at that time. Those aircraft should have been quarantined for false components being included, after all, that is the reason to have the PMA, and PA's for the product in the first place. The supplier to Boeing at that time didn't accidentally forget to use a CNC machine, there were none apparently in the building in the report to Boeing at that time, which is part of the public record of the law suit.
Once upon a time, Boeing made solid aircraft, and then in 1995 in the miracle of the reverse takeover of Boeing, the corporate management of MDD who had bounced from one scandal to another for decades, sold their company to Boeing, a respected and straight laced center of excellence, (and occasional whoopsies, JAL 103 etc) and the MDD management ended up filling the majority of squares in the corporate structure of Boeing.
Did Boeing have a hand in this latest “non-standard manufacturing process” that has been discovered? No idea, but the issue smacks of a system, Boeing, FAA, and the Courts of Washington, that taught a good lesson to the QA engineers of Boeing to be very careful about bothering to report adverse findings that affect aircraft. The fact that this has been aired fairly quickly will be interesting to ascertain how and who reported the defect in production, perhaps Boeing has grown a conscience, or bothered to read up on AS9100D or ISO9000. If they have, then maybe they would have the integrity to review their disgraceful actions in 2003 in relation to the QA engineers sacked for reporting a similar non compliance. Fat chance of that on historical behaviour of the company.
(sorry yogi)
DEJA VU (https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/boeing-shares-tumble-parts-issue-halts-deliveries-some-737-maxs-2023-04-14/)
As reported on FR24: A sub-contractor of Spirit Aerosystems used a “non-standard manufacturing process” that affected some of the attachment points for the fitting between the 737-7, 737-8, 737-10, and P-8 fuselage and vertical fin. Approximately 50 undelivered aircraft are affected and nearly all 737 MAX aircraft built since 2019 will need rework.
Now, that echoes the debacle of Ducommon's ring frame saga, of around 2003, where if you can recall, a routine QA audit with a few Boeing QA auditors visited the sub-contractor Ducommon, in Downey CA, who were manufacturing ring frames that hold the fuselage sections together at various stations. The production approval that supported the TCDS specified that these were CNC milled parts, and so the QA guys were surprised to find no CNC on the premises, but there were teams of mechanics standing around formers coaxing aluminium parts into eye pleasing shape. One assumes that the hammering of the part into shape instead of using CNC was some form of shot peening or surface something. What it wasn't was a compliant component. These parts contaminated a very large number of the B737 NGs built to that date, and so of course, those responsible to ensure that the parts complied with their design and process.... ended up sacking a few of their QA people who had discovered the issue.
Well done Boeing. Same attitude, different day going into 2019 and the B737Max accidents.
Or B787... (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/boeing-qa-manager-whistleblower-reveals-thousands-parts-eastman/)
The sacked QA inspectors sued Boeing for wrongful dismissal (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/11/flight-risk-3/), and as it is the USA, where jurisprudence is what it is, the QA inspectors lost to Boeing in the courts. 'Xlent. Did Boeing remove the bogus parts? They did repairs in situ to the aircraft, this is the Boeing that messed about with military contracts, and did sack the lady involved with that, out of fear of being banned as a supplier to the US DOD. Phil Condit took his retirement amid the scandals at that time, and Boeing went.... back to the future.
The counter argument that the 3 QA engineers in the 2003 event were using the issues as industrial leverage appear as much a routine disparagement of a reporting party as ever, and in the context of the 20 years since the B737 ring frame saga started, it appears that there might just have been some substance to the issues raised by the QA engineers. It is not a nice story, that's for sure.
One wonders whether Boeing will repeat the disgusting behaviour of 2003 where they played the player, not the ball, and got away with it by the obsequience of the FAA at that time. Those aircraft should have been quarantined for false components being included, after all, that is the reason to have the PMA, and PA's for the product in the first place. The supplier to Boeing at that time didn't accidentally forget to use a CNC machine, there were none apparently in the building in the report to Boeing at that time, which is part of the public record of the law suit.
Once upon a time, Boeing made solid aircraft, and then in 1995 in the miracle of the reverse takeover of Boeing, the corporate management of MDD who had bounced from one scandal to another for decades, sold their company to Boeing, a respected and straight laced center of excellence, (and occasional whoopsies, JAL 103 etc) and the MDD management ended up filling the majority of squares in the corporate structure of Boeing.
Did Boeing have a hand in this latest “non-standard manufacturing process” that has been discovered? No idea, but the issue smacks of a system, Boeing, FAA, and the Courts of Washington, that taught a good lesson to the QA engineers of Boeing to be very careful about bothering to report adverse findings that affect aircraft. The fact that this has been aired fairly quickly will be interesting to ascertain how and who reported the defect in production, perhaps Boeing has grown a conscience, or bothered to read up on AS9100D or ISO9000. If they have, then maybe they would have the integrity to review their disgraceful actions in 2003 in relation to the QA engineers sacked for reporting a similar non compliance. Fat chance of that on historical behaviour of the company.