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Thinking about this a little more, I also see a failure here in terms of naming things, which I have noticed in my career can be scoffed at but is so important.
by kejaed 7y ago
Thinking about this a little more, I also see a failure here in terms of naming things, which I have noticed in my career can be scoffed at but is so important.
As the article says, the function of MCAS changed and its operational envelope was greatly expanded. What if, internally at least, the new system was referred to as MCAS2?
This is somewhere that things can get political, as was exactly the case with the Max, where they did not want anything to be considered a change to the aircraft type, let alone knowing the MCAS system existed in two majorly differing versions.
- countbackula 7y agoAdmittedly I have 0 familiarity of the internals of a corporate electrical engineering environment, but this is a logically sound idea that in many other industries is standard. OS 10.02, Apache license v. 2, Archer router xyz Rev 02. What's the limiting factor here in the case of MCAS?
- karmelapple 7y agoThere are definitely different versions of software, each with unique identifiers, such as typical version numbers. There’s also the idea of “flight test ready” software, which is able to go onto a flight, vs software that is only to be used in a lab that is not truly flying in the air and controlling the plane.
- BurningFrog 7y agoPerhaps something entirely different than what you're talking about, but... I believe changing the aircraft type would trigger regulatory events carrying rather gargantuan costs. Avoiding those seem to be the entire reason for the existence of the 737 MAX.
- karmelapple 7y agoNaming things and communicating changes are all core parts of the Systems Engineering process. Failing to clearly communicate precisely how big this change was, and not making it extremely clear to all stakeholders what was happening and doing analyses of how these failure modes have changed, is really awful.
- suzzer99 7y agoThis is so true. Naming to me is one of the most important decisions. When I see someone who frets over naming decisions for hours, or will sit down with me and really think through what we're going to name something - I know they get the gravity of the situation. I trust those kinds of people much more for big picture architectural or project lead decisions.
- sooheon 7y agoDo you have examples off the top of your head of really great names that have come as a result of this process?