Posted on 04/07/2012 7:57:44 AM PDT by darkwing104
Last November, researchers for the Senate Armed Forces Services Committee, reported our military had purchased and installed counterfeit electronic components into Warplanes and other weapons systems. During their research the committee claimed that it found more than a million fake parts in a random sample with approximately 70% of the electronic parts originating from China.
The components would find their way into the Defense Supply Chain through approved commercial distributors who purchase the parts directly from China. The Chinese would purposely pack counterfeit parts with in genuine military grade components and sell the batch to the Defense Logistics Agency at bargain prices with little or no quality assurance checks.
Military grade parts are manufactured to withstand extreme conditions. The counterfeit components are often factory rejects or commercial grade parts which have been relabeled. The most effective method to ensure the quality of parts being purchased is aggressive testing of the parts and the decertification of distributers who are selling fake parts to the military. But apparently those charged with insuring the quality of these parts have not done their job.
According to the Chinese nationalistic commentator Song Xiaojun, the United States is at fault (of course!)
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
I was wondering if that F-18 going down the other day might be connected to this.
I read a book (fiction) about parts manufactured in China used in commercial planes and causing failures. I think it was by Michael Crichton.
The problem here...is that you have legitimate vendors who are providing services to a gov’t contract. Their junior employees are ordering parts from various sources, who are thought/believed to be....other legit vendors. All it takes is one clerk to get in the middle of this mess...order a box of circuits at half-price from some guy they met at a trade show in Seattle....then you got these bogus Chinese parts in the middle of a legit item that goes onto a US tank, sub or bomber. Potential failure? You just don’t know.
When everything was made in America....you didn’t worry about this. That really says alot about how far we’ve fallen.
As for the future? Some Chinese kid is building a circuit item which has a notification-to-turn-off command. All it takes is some computer message or some satellite message....and it turns the system off. This kid will eventually perfect it, and the Chinese will move heaven and Earth to get the US vendors to buy the circuits. At that point, we have failed as a nation to protect ourselves.
Made in China ping
A ping list dedicated to exposing the quality, safety and security issues of anything “Made in China”.
If we have the slightest suspicion our suppliers are not giving us components as they represent, we can visit their factories and audit their supply chain. If they refuse, we change suppliers.
Most industries in the private sector operate in the same manner if they value quality and integrity of their product.
That’s exactly what I thought. The name of the book is “Airframe.”
Threw the whole mess away, just wasn't worth my time to repair.
I do not believe the US should be trading with an potential enemy dictatorship. Go ahead and call me “isolationist” but that's how I feel.
They ARE right. US distributors are under an obligation to not pass along counterfeit parts. Demand better quality-control spot-checks by contractors, and impose heavy penalties on distributors who pass along bad parts, and parts purchases from China will stop.
If a Chinese part costs 10% less, but carries a risk of having you pay $$$$ over having counterfeits among the shipment, then it won't be worth it.
And if CHINA AS A WHOLE pays a price for shipping bad parts, then people there who ship bad parts will get a bullet in the back of the head.
IIRC, the story about that happening to MOBOs was that an employee from the PRC of a component company not in the PRC stole the formulation, and went back to the PRC.
They [PRC people] apparently did not follow the recipe, and/or didn't employ the same QC methods on input and output of the manufacture.
“I was wondering if that F-18 going down the other day might be connected to this”
BEAT ME TO IT...and I’ll bet it was .....
If you stuff a 2200mF part inside a 6800mF case, it doesn’t take much incoming inspection to find the error.
I’m surprised someone had the b**ls to pull this one off...:^)
The trouble started when the Military began allowing essenitally commercial parts instead of parts meeting specific military specifications. Cut costs but also quality.
no, china had nothing to do with it, they were Taiwanese manufacturers.
an Japanese employee stole an electrolyte formula and sold it to the Taiwanese but he did not give them the right formula.
a much bigger problem, one which has cost much more is ROHS solder this is so serious that the dod has started another “Manhattan project” in order to solve it.
During My Air Force Career I was an Intelligence analyst, before that I was an Electronics Tech. It would be easy to discover that but the folks in the Logistics field don't really know the difference, all they have to go by is the word of the distributors they purchase it from. I can't fault them because they don't know. Once discovered the offending company should be banned from doing business with the government for life and stripped of all ISO and ASA certifications.
Now that I work for a defense contractor my company takes this seriously, our reputations would be damaged if we used counterfeit parts in our products. I chose that picture because it was the most oblivious scam.
Yes, I heard that Texas Instruments spent millions converting all of it's chip assembly plants to be lead free.
When they finished the total world wide savings was in the order of the lead content in six car batteries.
In the UK I watched workers on the tile roof of my cousin's house. They were using lead flashing. I asked if this was still legal and she said you can just buy it by the pound in the home supply store.
So micrograms in electronic components get removed, but still used by the pound on a roof - the EU in action...:^)
bump— faulty plane parts
i guess that is assuming any REAL incoming inspection is still done...
placemark
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