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Coding Error Forces 2019 Subaru Ascents to be Scrapped
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- paulcole 8y agoDespite being the title of the article it isn’t what it seems. The coding error was in the production of the cars which led to them needing to be destroyed. The coding error didn’t literally send them to the crusher instead of the showroom floor as the title implies.
- seattle_spring 8y agoI was picturing some oversized Subaru-branded Rube Goldberg machine, with the final step being a shiny car being tossed into a crusher.
- paulcole 8y agoNow that’s news!
- dang 8y agoOk, we've revised the title to disambiguate it.
- pfarnsworth 8y agoI'm interested why over-automation caused so many problems in manufacturing plants. I would think that once an assembly line has been set, full automation would be completely ideal and perfect. Is it because plants are always changing and getting tweaked, and changes require software updates, which invariably have bugs and take time to adapt to changes?
- trentmb 8y ago> I'm interested why over-automation caused so many problems in manufacturing plants. A robot will uncritically do what you tell it. An experienced welder will tell you you're an idiot when you're an idiot.
- Someone1234 8y agoSo is the issue over-automation or bad QA after the system is set up?
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- setr 8y agoI would imagine theyd try to automate QA too, akin to unit testing You could imagine a situation where the automated QA is trusted and does its job in sets, with humans interspersed to backup the QA programs. But one of the QA checks is actually buggy and OK’s the missing weld, but the full batch of work covers it up before reaching a human for the double-check In which case, both issues are at fault: too much reliance on the QA program, and allowing too much work to be done before it reached a human (bad double-check setup)
- archi42 8y agoI imagine if you have a list of welding points and feed that list to both the assembly and inspection robots, stuff like this happens. Especially in case the robots share code and e.g. have the same parse error when loading your list of welding points.
- Gibbon1 8y ago> A robot will uncritically do what you tell it And might well muck it up one time out of 50.
- rustcharm 8y agoThis was really an inspection error. A human can miss a weld, too, so manufacturing lines rely on inspections. Someone was signing off on work that wasn't done. Whether a human or a robot was supposed to do that work is a nit.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 8y agoFrom TFA: “[Subaru] found an Ascent with the missing welds during a routine sampling inspection on 21 July” The affected vehicles were built between 13th and 21st. Not sure how long QA takes for a vehicle, but they found it within a week.
- Timmah 8y agosampling inspection. Not a hard software check: `assert ( numWelds == 30);` Or a camera that takes a picture of each vehicles undercarriage. They probably thought that was unnecessary until now.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 8y agoCould have been an error of requirements causing both the robot control code and any automated testing to be incorrectly implemented.
- visarga 8y agoYep, someone forgot to put those welding points and others didn't observe them missing.
- userbinator 8y agoSubaru indicated in the recall that “there is no physical remedy available; therefore, any vehicles found with missing welds will be destroyed.” Something doesn't feel right, when the cost of adding the missing welds is somehow higher than the cost of a whole new vehicle... If missing welds were discovered on an airliner, for example, the fix would almost certainly be to add them, and not replace the whole plane.
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 8y agoConceivably, they may have to dismantle the entire vehicle to get to a hidden weld, which could require compromising the structural integrity of the vehicle if dismantling is equivalent to cutting at any step in the dismantling process.
- userbinator 8y agoI'm guessing the welds aren't all that hidden, since the recall notice mentions that people will be inspecting the vehicles for them and if any disassembly is required it presumably won't take all that long since it mentions the B-pillar --- a part which isn't buried in a bunch of other stuff, unlike e.g. under the seats or the firewall. In any case, a weld done right won't weaken the structure --- they can be as strong or even stronger than the original material. It can be a bit surprising, especially to anyone who learns to weld for the first time and then tests his/her joints to destruction, to see just how strong they are.
- Someone 8y agoThe hole needed for inspection (if any; inspection need not be visual) can be a lot smaller than what’s needed for adding a weld.
- falcrist 8y agoMy first thought was that these weld points must be inaccessible without cutting the vehicle open. A weld point may be surrounded by metal structures that are themselves welded in place. I'd love to hear from a mechanical engineer how likely it is that a structural weld point would be buried this way.
- martyvis 8y agoI still remember when I started playing around with computers, 40 years ago in a Tandy store on TRS-80, you were told something like "it doesn't matter what you do on the computer, you can't hurt it or damage anything". Now everyday when I work (on networking and security for large enterprises) I constantly am thinking about how I have to really make sure the process I am about to execute isn't going to break something or disrupt someone's business operation. Rarely do I have to contemplate that what I get wrong might kill someone though!
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 8y agoHere’s an interesting series of articles on Risks to the Public by the ACM Special Interest Group for Software Engineering: https://dl.acm.org/results.cfm?query=Risks+to+the+public&Go.x=22&Go.y=4 https://dl.acm.org/results.cfm?query=Risks+to+the+public&Go....
- stevev 8y agoWhen you move your plants to the US.
- logicandreason 8y agoCoding error? Maybe... but I would bet it all started in business where some management decision was made to replace "Bob" who programmed the bots for years was replaced by a cheaper less experienced person, all in efforts to reduce IT costs. So let's rename this thread, "Business Management decision forces 2019 Subaru Ascents to be Scrapped".