Posted on 04/09/2019 12:22:10 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Quality inspectors at Boeing, angry at management’s plan to streamline and automate some quality-control processes with fewer inspectors overseeing the work of mechanics, point to a recent quality-control audit that missed one of its targets as evidence that the company’s effort is unwise.
Boeing plans to eliminate up to 900 quality- inspector positions as part of a sweeping transformation of its manufacturing system over the next two years. The idea is to move away from reliance on inspections by a second set of eyes to find any defects after a mechanic does a job. Instead, Boeing is redesigning tasks to make it easier for mechanics to get things right first time, and deploying smart tools and digital technology to track and monitor quality.
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After The Seattle Times published an initial Jan. 20 story on Boeing’s plans to transform its quality-control system, quoting two quality inspectors unhappy about management’s cutting of inspections, additional.Boeing inspectors came forward with their own concerns.
One, referring to the failed audit in Everett, said the changes mean that “safety is going to be put at risk in favor of lower costs.”
A second inspector reiterated the claims of inspectors last week that Boeing cutting the number of inspections creates false data about a reduction in defects: “The metrics show improved quality only because the defects aren’t being identified.”
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Car companies have done this for years. Quality is higher than ever. Implement six sigma processes and you don’t make defects for quality inspectors to find.
Still, there continue to be recalls..
Article was written a few weeks before tragedy in Ethiopia.
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It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the crash in Ethiopia.
My guess is still outsourced engineers from India.
Intel had stupendous quality control until India H1b finally got promoted to upper management levels.
The first one to show up was the Floating Point Flaw.
These systems negate the need for most visual inspection favoring instead, design assurance, process control and assembler level empowerment to get the job done right.
Visual inspection and verification was the old MIL-Q-9858 approach. Inspectors, like all humans, are about 85% efficient at detecting anomalies. Multiple inspections progressively through the manufacturing process would detect the 15% escapes later in the process where they were more expensive to fix.
The bottom line is that the inspectors, whose jobs are on the line, are sticking it to Boeing to keep their jobs more than out of concerns for quality assurance.
I didn’t say it did.
Been tried a thousand different times in hundreds of different companies - always with the same results.
Mechanics miss things because they are human - it always takes another set of eyes, no matter how great the process is or how good the mechanic/electrician is.
Even I have missed things (humans always seem socked to hear me say that....)
Pity they don't have ISO900X throughout the federal government
At least Trump gets it: Promises made
Promises kept.
One too often “falls in love” with their own design or build so its hard to see the flaws. All that type of checking should be done by someone else. Very important no & I mean no repercussions on the original builder\author\designer for the flaws (There are exceptions of course!). We all make mistakes the goal is too learn from them not be pilloried over them.
As if human inspectors catch every defect. Improve the processes to reduce the chance of making defects and the inspectors are less necessary. You prove it by improving the process until you reach the point where common cause variation is understood and accounted for, so that defects are basically from special causes that are easy to catch.
This all works better with automated processes - don’t know how much of the process for producing a 737 is manual assembly.
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