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It's fashionable to hate Boeing, and they totally deserve it, but I'm in the industry (satellite payload side mostly) and I've been getting hints that this is b

It's fashionable to hate Boeing, and they totally deserve it, but I'm in the industry (satellite payload side mostly) and I've been getting hints that this is becoming the case everywhere. Spacex in particular seems to be trying to move as much of the assembly labor as possible to lower qualification workers as a cost cutting measure. Now, that's kinda how manufacturing works. You start with a product that is hand assembled by your $200/hr engineers and try to get it to the point where it's being mass produced by $20/hr techs and/or automated machinery. The issue is, how skilled are you at training those techs and setting up automation? If your management culture is dogshit at organizing literally anything, you're gonna have a bad time. You can take random people off the street and teach them to assemble spacecraft faster than you'd expect, but you need to be deliberate about it. Basically, this isn't an issue of using unwashed "non-areospace" workers, it's Boeing management and high level engineers continuing to be trash. On the flip side, Spacex is relatively organized, but they'll have their moment when they run their course as a hot startup, failures and lessons lead to "process" and they can no longer get infinite new talent for the meat grinder. They almost make a point of not retaining, they want their workforce on edge at all times and you can only do that so long, all their talent is running off with their knowledge to other startups.

bb88 2y ago
Edited to add: I don't think it's fashionable to hate Boeing. I argue it's your civic duty to be outraged by it. There's a minimum cost at which things can be constructed. If Boeing wants 4 sigmas of a safety margin instead of 7 or 8 sigmas for profit reasons, great -- all I ask is that companies be up front about it when they sell, say, a reduced-safety 737-800Max (.e.g) to the market. It will be less safe, but some people may buy it (say Fedex, e.g.). The other aspect is that I don't think the front line people and engineers are rewarded enough. People like money. Tying quality to bonuses is not a terrible idea. A lot of quality is known where people with less than 1 year of experience will make X% of mistakes. As they get more and more experienced they make Y% of mistakes.... encourage them get to Y% faster.
xethos 2y ago
This is what leaves me annoyed about NASA choosing (so far) not to continue with the suggested financial penalties for Boeing. Boeing sought to save a dollar by using less-qualified, less expensive labour, in an area that they clearly shouldn't have. That should have a cost, dammit.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
  Some of those saved dollars got to political contributions. The return on investment on that is fantastic.

bb88 2y ago

Edited to add: I don't think it's fashionable to hate Boeing. I argue it's your civic duty to be outraged by it. There's a minimum cost at which things can be constructed. If Boeing wants 4 sigmas of a safety margin instead of 7 or 8 sigmas for profit reasons, great -- all I ask is that companies be up front about it when they sell, say, a reduced-safety 737-800Max (.e.g) to the market. It will be less safe, but some people may buy it (say Fedex, e.g.). The other aspect is that I don't think the front line people and engineers are rewarded enough. People like money. Tying quality to bonuses is not a terrible idea. A lot of quality is known where people with less than 1 year of experience will make X% of mistakes. As they get more and more experienced they make Y% of mistakes.... encourage them get to Y% faster.

xethos 2y ago

This is what leaves me annoyed about NASA choosing (so far) not to continue with the suggested financial penalties for Boeing. Boeing sought to save a dollar by using less-qualified, less expensive labour, in an area that they clearly shouldn't have. That should have a cost, dammit.

Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
Some of those saved dollars got to political contributions. The return on investment on that is fantastic.