4 ms·

I'd guess it was true. I've worked with engineering companies across Europe, and their documentation is always amazing, with full traceability of every compone

I'd guess it was true. I've worked with engineering companies across Europe, and their documentation is always amazing, with full traceability of every component going back to the 80's. Everything from processes to weld inspections. I'd assume that a company engineering weapons would be the same.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
But documentation is only part of it. There's a culture (or tradition) that carries with it the context needed to interpret documentation. You can reduce some of the context, yes, but sola scriptura is wrong for a reason. Otherwise, you're in the business of archeology, a field which itself requires extra-archaeological context to make sense of its own findings.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  As I've written in a similar post, this attitude is a bit baffling. In IT we say, a backup ain't a backup until regularly validated to work, and most IT insurances/policies require regular testing for backups. I'd expect the same standard for anything military/involving national security, alone for the fact that should war come, there will be a need to rapidly expand production, to rope in everyone able and willing - and that won't work without complete documentation.
  - richk449 3y ago
    Sure, now imagine the backup system was discontinued twenty years ago and not tested since then.
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      Yup, and that is what should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. I can understand it for some backwater country struggling to feed its citizens, but NATO members? The United States? Come on that's ridiculous.
      - saiya-jin 3y ago
        Come on, don't expect perfection, that ain't typical human trait. The chain is always as weak as its weakest link and this is not different. I presume there are good reasons why this and exactly this is happening (and probably not only at this manufacturer), if for nothing else than reducing costs... not maintaining something is always cheaper than maintaining it.
  - DropInIn 3y ago
    So there's something you didn't consider - Documentation can be stolen and used against you far more readily than people. In a sense you could consider each person who has knowledge to be an air gapped data bank with a limited lifespan. Theres some very clear issues with that system, but that's arguably the effective intention behind not documenting war related development until well after the useful lifespan of the development.
  - Bluestrike2 3y ago
    It's almost a certainty that all of the drawings, plans, and related engineering information for the Stinger missile still exists. In that sense, the backup is fine. It works. Raytheon has the plans for the Stinger missile and likely much, if not all, information on the design of the original production lines. But that's probably where the issue lies. Those plans make certain assumptions based on the technology, tooling, and processes in use at the time. The bill of materials may reference off-the-shelf parts that were readily available back in the 70s and 80s but are now considered obsolete. Some of the raw materials specified may no longer in use due to new environmental regulations, changes in industry standards, limited availability nowadays for any number of reasons, etc. Machining processes may be documented in the context of machines, tools, and procedures common a the time that we simply no longer use. Similar challenges exist for every part of the process, from sourcing materials to quality control. You can document everything with a great deal of detail at the time--likely the case here, by the nature of manufacturing complex products--but that doesn't mean it will be understood in exactly the same manner forty years later. No engineer can predict how processes and standards will change over that kind of time frame; the best they can do is document everything clearly enough that future engineers can work through what's left behind and adapt it as needed in the future. Bringing in retirees likely expedites that process. They can almost certainly work through it, but if a few phone calls and meetings with retired staff can speed things along, there's no reason not to. It doesn't mean someone screwed the pooch in the past. In a military context, existing stockpiles are meant to give you sufficient time to restart production. With a computer backup, you can monitor that the system is functioning and verify the recovery process. You can even confirm it directly, restoring backups to a separate system. You can't do that with a manufacturing line that hasn't manufactured anything in forty years. Either you keep it active, manufacturing items you neither need nor want, or you try to constantly update your plans every few years on the off-chance that you'll want to build more outdated Stingers in the future. That would absurdly wasteful, and even if you catch some changes in procedure/systems/materials, you'll miss plenty of others unless you actually try to restart production. No matter what you do, there's going to have to be a certain degree of interpretation work that's needed.
    - throw9away6 3y ago
      This is mostly it. Plus you have to remember all the documentation lies in a 30 year old system. A new hire isn’t going to be easily able to piece together all the details quickly. Then there is all the stuff that is documented or not in procedures manuals and standard practices that they won’t know. Add in actual missing documentation like order of operations and special considerations that have down steam effects and i guarantee you would still come out ahead even if you are paying retirees 2x as much. The parts are no doubt expensive and any single screw up would likely be at least worth of salary expenses.
adventured 3y ago
> I've worked with engineering companies across Europe Europe isn't overflowing with gigantic tech companies nor defense contractors that would have what you're describing going back to the 1980s and 1990s. You can likely count them on one hand, given how few there are to begin with. There's a very big difference between knowing how something was made decades ago via schematic & component lists, and having to restart very high-quality production from scratch, including the ancient components. Building things related to technology during their actual time + place, is considerably easier than trying to recreate that time + place decades into the future and at scale.
- constantcrying 3y ago
  >Europe isn't overflowing with gigantic tech companies nor defense contractors that would have what you're describing going back to the 1980s and 1990s. That is completely delusional. >You can likely count them on one hand, given how few there are to begin with. Giant (or just large) Technology/Defense companies, a random sample: Siemens,Bosch,Phillips,Renaut,Airbus,VW,Thales,Thyssen Krupp,Rheinmetall,Saab,Dassault,Zeiss,ASML,NXP,BMW,Mercedes,Liebherr,MBDA,...
  - harkain 3y ago
    BAE Systems also comes to mind
jki275 3y ago
The companies who make the components may have merged, gone out of business, switched to manufacturing something else, etc. That's the real problem -- you can't source the same components you did, and in order to work around those problems you need people with a deep knowledge of the whole system who can figure out how to resolve that.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

But documentation is only part of it. There's a culture (or tradition) that carries with it the context needed to interpret documentation. You can reduce some of the context, yes, but sola scriptura is wrong for a reason. Otherwise, you're in the business of archeology, a field which itself requires extra-archaeological context to make sense of its own findings.

mschuster91 3y ago
As I've written in a similar post, this attitude is a bit baffling. In IT we say, a backup ain't a backup until regularly validated to work, and most IT insurances/policies require regular testing for backups. I'd expect the same standard for anything military/involving national security, alone for the fact that should war come, there will be a need to rapidly expand production, to rope in everyone able and willing - and that won't work without complete documentation.
- richk449 3y ago
  Sure, now imagine the backup system was discontinued twenty years ago and not tested since then.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    Yup, and that is what should never have been allowed to happen in the first place. I can understand it for some backwater country struggling to feed its citizens, but NATO members? The United States? Come on that's ridiculous.
    - saiya-jin 3y ago
      Come on, don't expect perfection, that ain't typical human trait. The chain is always as weak as its weakest link and this is not different. I presume there are good reasons why this and exactly this is happening (and probably not only at this manufacturer), if for nothing else than reducing costs... not maintaining something is always cheaper than maintaining it.
- DropInIn 3y ago
  So there's something you didn't consider - Documentation can be stolen and used against you far more readily than people. In a sense you could consider each person who has knowledge to be an air gapped data bank with a limited lifespan. Theres some very clear issues with that system, but that's arguably the effective intention behind not documenting war related development until well after the useful lifespan of the development.
- Bluestrike2 3y ago
  It's almost a certainty that all of the drawings, plans, and related engineering information for the Stinger missile still exists. In that sense, the backup is fine. It works. Raytheon has the plans for the Stinger missile and likely much, if not all, information on the design of the original production lines. But that's probably where the issue lies. Those plans make certain assumptions based on the technology, tooling, and processes in use at the time. The bill of materials may reference off-the-shelf parts that were readily available back in the 70s and 80s but are now considered obsolete. Some of the raw materials specified may no longer in use due to new environmental regulations, changes in industry standards, limited availability nowadays for any number of reasons, etc. Machining processes may be documented in the context of machines, tools, and procedures common a the time that we simply no longer use. Similar challenges exist for every part of the process, from sourcing materials to quality control. You can document everything with a great deal of detail at the time--likely the case here, by the nature of manufacturing complex products--but that doesn't mean it will be understood in exactly the same manner forty years later. No engineer can predict how processes and standards will change over that kind of time frame; the best they can do is document everything clearly enough that future engineers can work through what's left behind and adapt it as needed in the future. Bringing in retirees likely expedites that process. They can almost certainly work through it, but if a few phone calls and meetings with retired staff can speed things along, there's no reason not to. It doesn't mean someone screwed the pooch in the past. In a military context, existing stockpiles are meant to give you sufficient time to restart production. With a computer backup, you can monitor that the system is functioning and verify the recovery process. You can even confirm it directly, restoring backups to a separate system. You can't do that with a manufacturing line that hasn't manufactured anything in forty years. Either you keep it active, manufacturing items you neither need nor want, or you try to constantly update your plans every few years on the off-chance that you'll want to build more outdated Stingers in the future. That would absurdly wasteful, and even if you catch some changes in procedure/systems/materials, you'll miss plenty of others unless you actually try to restart production. No matter what you do, there's going to have to be a certain degree of interpretation work that's needed.
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    This is mostly it. Plus you have to remember all the documentation lies in a 30 year old system. A new hire isn’t going to be easily able to piece together all the details quickly. Then there is all the stuff that is documented or not in procedures manuals and standard practices that they won’t know. Add in actual missing documentation like order of operations and special considerations that have down steam effects and i guarantee you would still come out ahead even if you are paying retirees 2x as much. The parts are no doubt expensive and any single screw up would likely be at least worth of salary expenses.

adventured 3y ago

> I've worked with engineering companies across Europe Europe isn't overflowing with gigantic tech companies nor defense contractors that would have what you're describing going back to the 1980s and 1990s. You can likely count them on one hand, given how few there are to begin with. There's a very big difference between knowing how something was made decades ago via schematic & component lists, and having to restart very high-quality production from scratch, including the ancient components. Building things related to technology during their actual time + place, is considerably easier than trying to recreate that time + place decades into the future and at scale.

constantcrying 3y ago
>Europe isn't overflowing with gigantic tech companies nor defense contractors that would have what you're describing going back to the 1980s and 1990s. That is completely delusional. >You can likely count them on one hand, given how few there are to begin with. Giant (or just large) Technology/Defense companies, a random sample: Siemens,Bosch,Phillips,Renaut,Airbus,VW,Thales,Thyssen Krupp,Rheinmetall,Saab,Dassault,Zeiss,ASML,NXP,BMW,Mercedes,Liebherr,MBDA,...
- harkain 3y ago
  BAE Systems also comes to mind

jki275 3y ago

The companies who make the components may have merged, gone out of business, switched to manufacturing something else, etc. That's the real problem -- you can't source the same components you did, and in order to work around those problems you need people with a deep knowledge of the whole system who can figure out how to resolve that.