” ... faulty engine seals on HMAS Canberra are believed to be responsible for the “migration”, or leaking, of various oil types into different engine areas.”
Seems like the same blokes who made the factory-original seals on the engine of my 1974 Triumph Spitfire.
Musta been designed by FIAT engineers................
Too many cooks ...
I’ll say up front that I both am not an engineer, and I don’t have any defense or maritime industry experience.
Early in my career, I did, however, do some work in the hydraulics industry.
But I’m fascinated with all things mechanical and I pay attention to the state of various industries.
My take on the most likely cause of these problems...
1) Viewing engineers as interchangeable assets that can be hired/fired/moved at will rather than respecting the expertise that comes with experience. If you want to make machines that last, most of the problems were sorted out long ago. Sure, new technology may introduce new problems, but the knowledge of what solutions work and why other solutions fail seems to be lost on every generation. Part of it is the lack of good knowledge transfer, but a big part is that companies don’t value their staff so people either don’t stay or they’re fired and replaced.
2) Management by MBA. I think an MBA can be a real asset when it’s coupled with experience - especially industry experience. But too often, it’s assumed an MBA in itself turns an otherwise useless cog into a star manager. In my experience, too many MBAs have a lot of book smarts and are eager to implement the latest academically-generated buzzworks only to royally screw up an otherwise functioning company, department or product. Worse, they often seem to skate by, getting bonuses for “saving money” in the short term, then they jump ship or get promoted before the ramifications of their decisions have fully taken effect. It only takes a couple of these “wiz kidz” to leave a trail of destruction through a formerly successful company.
I’m betting if the full history of these product failures were investigated, you’d find one or both of the above. In fact, I’d guess that there were numerous warnings about these very failures potentially happening that were ignored/suppressed/overruled because they were raised by people too far down the chain to have their opinions matter.