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What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own met

What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? I agree that it's a little bonkers that Boeing spun off it's own aerostructures, but since it seems like Boeing has it's own problems with internal fraudulent inspection reports, this sure doesn't seem like an out sourcing problem per-se.

josefx 2y ago
> What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying from an untrusted source without any verification of your own in place. > Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? For all we know they bought it on wish.com. > Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? Random sampling of materials to determine if the delivery is fit for purpose should be the absolute minimum.
- constantcrying 2y ago
  But the problem isn't outsourcing, it is failed incoming inspection.
  - e44858 2y ago
    Sounds like they outsourced the inspection too.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Spirit itself is an "outsourcing" from Boeing's point of view. They spun it off so they could put more aggressive downwards pressure on labor price and then play dumb when it had the obvious and well understood outcomes like "buying underspecced materials to save money" and "workers don't do all the work they should, to save money" and "having different systems to control work so you can massage the official one, to save money by doing less work"
- caminante 2y ago
  That's the point. The parent is blaming quality control steps of outsourced materials at Boeing (not third party). "Outsourcing = bad" is missing the point.
  - therealpygon 2y ago
    That is an interesting point of view, however, needing to distrust and expect fraud from every outsource agency sounds exactly like their point, which was not the elementary “outsource = bad” that you make it out to be.
    - caminante 2y ago
      No. The parent said that the quality control should be on the supplier, not Boeing. This is instead of a joint problem with Boeing validating. Look at the repercussions. Boeing gambled on shaving procurement oversight and lost.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    If sufficiently intense oversight is needed at the boundary then outsourcing becomes uneconomical. This is something SpaceX found (and also because external sources were often slow and expensive.)
    - everforward 2y ago
      Are you sure that applies to commodities with extremely high capital costs like mining and refining ore? It sort of makes sense to me with SpaceX. They’re presumably buying fairly boutique parts that likely already require custom manufacturing, so someone is spending capital either way. I can see how it might make sense for them to build a custom manufacturing line instead of paying someone else. That seems odd for commodities like titanium, though. Even if Boeing were to do it themselves, that oversight process is already a subset of the mining and refining process. They’re going to have to build out their QA lab either way.
      - 2y ago
- Beijinger 2y ago
  "For all we know they bought it on wish.com." Source?
  - 2k3r11s 2y ago
    For your future reference, the colloquial English expression "For all we know" implies that a humorous exaggeration follows.
chaostheory 2y ago
Not sure if this was technically outsourcing, but moving maintenance overseas to developing countries where agencies like the FAA have a much harder time to inspect the planes. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...
- therealpygon 2y ago
  A company willing to have employees accidentally die when they come down with a case of the whistleblows would do things to make oversight more difficult? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
spywaregorilla 2y ago
The problem was buying titanium* from titanium* suppliers.
datavirtue 2y ago
They certainly have to perform their own metallurgical analysis and certify the parts. Like, WTF? This is just hillbilly mom-and-pop bullshit.

josefx 2y ago

> What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying from an untrusted source without any verification of your own in place. > Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? For all we know they bought it on wish.com. > Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? Random sampling of materials to determine if the delivery is fit for purpose should be the absolute minimum.

constantcrying 2y ago
But the problem isn't outsourcing, it is failed incoming inspection.
- e44858 2y ago
  Sounds like they outsourced the inspection too.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Spirit itself is an "outsourcing" from Boeing's point of view. They spun it off so they could put more aggressive downwards pressure on labor price and then play dumb when it had the obvious and well understood outcomes like "buying underspecced materials to save money" and "workers don't do all the work they should, to save money" and "having different systems to control work so you can massage the official one, to save money by doing less work"
caminante 2y ago
That's the point. The parent is blaming quality control steps of outsourced materials at Boeing (not third party). "Outsourcing = bad" is missing the point.
- therealpygon 2y ago
  That is an interesting point of view, however, needing to distrust and expect fraud from every outsource agency sounds exactly like their point, which was not the elementary “outsource = bad” that you make it out to be.
  - caminante 2y ago
    No. The parent said that the quality control should be on the supplier, not Boeing. This is instead of a joint problem with Boeing validating. Look at the repercussions. Boeing gambled on shaving procurement oversight and lost.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  If sufficiently intense oversight is needed at the boundary then outsourcing becomes uneconomical. This is something SpaceX found (and also because external sources were often slow and expensive.)
  - everforward 2y ago
    Are you sure that applies to commodities with extremely high capital costs like mining and refining ore? It sort of makes sense to me with SpaceX. They’re presumably buying fairly boutique parts that likely already require custom manufacturing, so someone is spending capital either way. I can see how it might make sense for them to build a custom manufacturing line instead of paying someone else. That seems odd for commodities like titanium, though. Even if Boeing were to do it themselves, that oversight process is already a subset of the mining and refining process. They’re going to have to build out their QA lab either way.
    - 2y ago
Beijinger 2y ago
"For all we know they bought it on wish.com." Source?
- 2k3r11s 2y ago
  For your future reference, the colloquial English expression "For all we know" implies that a humorous exaggeration follows.

chaostheory 2y ago

Not sure if this was technically outsourcing, but moving maintenance overseas to developing countries where agencies like the FAA have a much harder time to inspect the planes. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-disturbing-truth https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...

therealpygon 2y ago
A company willing to have employees accidentally die when they come down with a case of the whistleblows would do things to make oversight more difficult? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.

spywaregorilla 2y ago

The problem was buying titanium* from titanium* suppliers.

datavirtue 2y ago

They certainly have to perform their own metallurgical analysis and certify the parts. Like, WTF? This is just hillbilly mom-and-pop bullshit.