Originally Posted by
texaspilot76
It does appear that these issues stem from design or faulty materials. However, Boeing employees are really irate over the company having a facility in South Carolina. I wonder if there might be some union sabotage occurring. Not saying that is the case, just a thought. I just know how ticked the workers were.
Back in the 70's to early 80's, Harley Davidson motorcycles were unreliable due in large part to union sabotage. After AMF bought Harley, worker dissatisfaction increased, and product quality suffered. Nuts and bolts were found in crankcases, parts were installed backwards, parts were machined to incorrect tolerances.
Due to lessons from the past, any speculation that some of this may be happening? If so, its a real bad situation when your dealing with airplanes ( motorcycles, too, for that matter).
I have a little inside baseball with Boeing.
It is most certainly NOT union sabotage, although that sort of things has happened before in other industries. This is aviation and those folks seem to have a higher sense of professional responsibility. That would be like ****ed off pilots rough-handling airliners to scare pax and get back at the company. Besides you'd be up on mass-murder charges if something happened.
The real problem with the 787 is that when the MBA's and been counters went looking for cheap labor offshore they somehow convinced themselves that they could get around the quality issue with ISO 9000 and similar certifications. Their fundamental gross conceptual failure was that many non-first world countries have inherently corrupt cultures (by western standards) and that anything like ISO 9000 is only as good as the people implementing it. This is amplified by the fact that they relied on offshoring for not just production but design as well.
There are very few places where you can have your cake and eat it to, ie low labor cost for skilled, quality labor and processes.
In retrospect, Boeing should have been far more selective in their outsourcing. After all is said and done I'm not sure they saved a dime.