A ‘prescient’ warning to Boeing on 787 trouble – The Seattle Times: In a late January appearance at Seattle University, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Jim Albaugh talked about the lessons learned from the disastrous three years of delays on the 787 Dreamliner.
One bracing lesson that Albaugh was unusually candid about: the 787’s global outsourcing strategy — specifically intended to slash Boeing’s costs — backfired completely.
“We spent a lot more money in trying to recover than we ever would have spent if we’d tried to keep the key technologies closer to home”…
…at least one senior technical engineer within Boeing predicted the outcome of the extensive outsourcing strategy with remarkable foresight a decade ago.
cpg–so, really nothing on point huh? Well, actually, that is reality so congrats on not trying to shoehorn the Procrustean Bed. What you are ranting about is balance of trade–not consumerism. Related, but by large tangent.
When USA goes formally broke and the rest of the world calls for a reset, the main consequences of same will be totally outside the “control” of the USA: what is happening outside of the USA? Has China also cratered? Is oil production plummeting? Has Pakistand nuked India?
Lots of stuff will be happening/offsetting/compounding the horribles of horribles. Yes, and I think we will see it since all we appear to be able to do is accelerate our own destruction.
Thank you PUKES.
Uncle Patso==you way out in front of me at least. Can you connect the dots? Between the Tower of Babel and “anything” else? It would be instructive.
# 37 – the US government has some very strange purchasing rules!
One of them is that they don’t pay for NRE
If I am making a custom part I may have to pay $30K for special tooling and the parts cost $1.
For a normal customer I would bill them $30K NRE then $1.20/bolt. For the government I have to bill them $1001.20 for the first 30 bolts,
then $1.20 for the next batch.
For Nasa I also have to charge an extra $500/bolt for the paperwork I have to do to show they are space-qualified 😉
“I would think the main economic problem with outsourcing is that the Chinese will steal the technology and then you won’t have a company left in 20 years.”
I’d say five more years.
The idea that work is valuable to the individual is diminished, if not gone. However, I have to say that I enjoy my job, 9+ of 10 days.
The primary reason Boeing tried to outsource is the union thugs. Boeing was crippled by a series of devastating strikes.
What were the union thugs doing specifically?
Oh yeah. Lost B_B_Billions. Gee what will they ever do? Can we all say t-t-tax b-b-break?
Boing prolly got billions just for coming up with the “idea” of off shoring. Another one of those “too big to fail companies”. They’ll make it on the next military contract, don’t worry.
I said in #29
The main idiotology is the disconnect between producer and consumer. The consequences are fast approaching.
The consequence is American sovereign default, you will very
soon not be able to issue any bonds nor increase the burden
on future generations. You will not be able to buy back the
bonds issued previous decades.
You will thus face complete financial lock up with a complete
stoppage of all pension and other commitments.
Thus begins the second American revolution.
As long as manipulating money is more prized and rewarded than actually making things, we will never be rid of this problem.
I hate the idea of outsourcing in general but when has Boeing ever had a project that finished on time and on budget?
Boeing management got religiously obsessed with fighting their unions, so they outsourced like crazy and convinced themselves they could manage or strongarm through all the foreseen and unforeseen problems. The 787 screwups are largely a result of this anti-union obsession.
It was all needless, since Boeing was in a duopoly with an inefficient, bureaucratic competitor. They didn’t need to wring every last short-term penny out of the unions. Boeing management has squandered America’s lead in aircraft and crippled one of our greatest companies.
But if we DON’T pay executives billions of dollars, we won’t get top-notch people capable of making sound decisions! Oh, God! I think too much oxygen is getting to our brains! Quick! Let’s require everybody to wear TWO neckties, then double the bonuses for everybody!!
# 40 bobbo, what is the value of an idea said:
“Uncle Patso==you way out in front of me at least. Can you connect the dots? Between the Tower of Babel and “anything” else? It would be instructive.”
The story of the Tower of Babel is a cautionary tale from the Bible. Preachers generally point to the pride of the builders saying “We’ll build a tower that will reach the sky and we’ll be able to see what God sees.” Even as a child, I took it rather as an example of a project that became too big to be managed by the practices of the time. It grew so big that the masons didn’t talk to the brickmakers or to the carpenters, the tilers and the plasterers each kept to their own group, etc., etc., etc. As the specialties grew, each developed its own argot/lingo/tech-speak. As the Bible puts it, “their tongues were confused.”
As civilization progressed through improvements in agriculture, civil engineering, education, communication, the industrial revolution, etc., larger projects were successful, but people are never satisfied — they always have to try the next bigger, better idea. Eventually the limit is reached. As the poet says, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold…”
To bring it back to the original subject: Boeing not only took on the project of building the world’s largest airliner, they added the project of generating (one of) the world’s largest, most complicated supply chains. With the cost of developing a new airliner doubling every few years, in part because of improvements in technology, one wonders how it was ever pulled off in the era of the slide rule!
Thank you Uncle Patso–its my own fault for not having read the story since childhood “but” I thought the story was much simpler than that: that mankind simply WAS building a tower which offended God so he struck people with the curse of many languages and disbursed them to many lands==or maybe the many languages alone caused the disbursement.
I will now go find the annotated bible section on this as your version hold much more value to we mere mortals.
I look forward to the reread.
Well Uncle Patso==I googled (“Tower of Babble”) and the first two accounts are very close to the simple story I remember–nothing at all like the made up factless story you constructed even when on notice you were being challenged. If I were a minor angel, I would smite you for making shit up just to backfill your point. I prefer your story because it has a modern useful tale to tell–which is why its not factual.
With what you admit to, and what you try to get away with………….ha, ha. Maybe Freud would say you have the penthouse suite in your own Tower??
Or not. I used to exaggerate and bs on ocassion, even 2-3 times at work and I really had to catch myself. WHY WAS I DOING THIS? Probably something Freud would speak to, but I think the truth is I just got bored with the same answer to the same question and I was exercising some creativity. I stopped that immediately and my touchstone to reality served me well. I called myself an asshole because I wasn’t being truthful. Sometime the truth hurts, and that the best kind.
Don’t you agree?
What gets me is that the very same companies that make aircraft for the US military… turn around and use everything they learned doing that, to make civilian aircraft, royalty free! The US Taxpayers don’t get a thing, for having funded their new technologies. And then they turn around (again) and outsource the jobs to cheaper overseas labor. And still manage to keep their defense contracts. What the hell happened to NOT GIVING AWAY US TECHNOLOGY SECRETS TO FOREIGN POWERS? Seems to me that US Aerospace contractors get to do whatever the hell they want to, to make a buck, or save a buck. All on the backs of the American taxpayers, who’ve kept them afloat with plenty of defense contract projects. That Congress and the Pentagon has failed to enforce any patent rights, or royalties payments of developed technologies. Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc, just get to keep it all under their own hats, and do whatever they please with it, duty and royalty free. The patent laws are for the protection of their financial interests, and not the American people. Or the security of the nation.
American Aerospace shouldn’t be allowed to operate outside of the US, if it wants to keep receiving tax dollars for defense contracts. The same could be said of American Automakers, who also dabble in military defense. How is America going to experience any economic recovery, if some the nation’s biggest industries continue to outsource jobs, to beat labor and corporate taxes?
Yeah, ya know I’m sure Boeing learned its lesson, and will NEVER try this again. WRONG!
#glenn – the purpose of the US military is to fund companies like Boeing (In Europe it’s to support BAe, Thales, Airbus, Dassault etc)
The real scandal is wasting money having troops on the ground in Iraq/Afgahinstan using cheap equipment that has already been paid for. What good does it do the economy, and Boeing executives bonuses, if they insist on buying rifles and boots rather than supersonic stealth air superiority fighter jets.
“Professional Management” at it’s FINEST !!!
Does Boeing have any Engineers left ???
You have to remember that half of Boeing is really just an extension of the government with defense business and the other half “competes” with one competitor (Airbus). They are not a shining example of America’s competitiveness.
In light of bobbo’s jumping on my interpretation of the Tower of Babel story as made up and factless, I thought harder about my conclusions, and I have to admit that the idea of each of the specialties developing its own tech lingo was not original with me, but was introduced to me by one of my teachers. I can’t remember if it was Father Doyle or Father Stone from grade school or Father Gregor or Father Newman in high school. But at the time I thought it made a lot of sense (and I still do). I thought I made it clear in my post that this was an _interpretation_ of the story rather than part of the actual Bible verses. I didn’t mean to mislead anyone into thinking that was part of the original story.
= = = = = = = = = =
# 55 Glenn E. said, in part:
“Congress and the Pentagon has failed to enforce any patent rights, or royalties payments of developed technologies. Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc, just get to keep it all under their own hats, and do whatever they please with it, duty and royalty free. The patent laws are for the protection of their financial interests, and not the American people. Or the security of the nation.”
I was under the impression that the Federal government was in fact prohibited from patenting or copyrighting federally funded work. For example, all the NASA and Hubble Telescope photos on Wikipedia are declared to be in the public domain.