One of the most valuable skill sets in the aerospace/space manufacturing environment is the planner or or the ability to do planning. There have been a couple of high profile cases that highlight this and I thought I’d just ramble on them for a bit the biggest one is the Boeing door plug debacle, apparently a Boeing executive at a media event of some kind mentioned that it was just missing paperwork that the handoff between different teams was supposed to be accompanied by paperwork and at some point that didn’t get generated so the teams didn’t know what they were supposed to be working on so they didn’t put four bolts back This was getting in the way of being able to respond to the demand for knowing who did what went basic tenet of producing high-quality safe aerospace goods is knowing and being able to knowing who did what when and being able after decades to go back and find out what went wrong that’s how we learn Unfortunately this often gets FRAeS is finding out who’s at fault that’s not what this is about the fact, we can’t identify the actual laborer who did not install the pins in the plug door is it’s a misdirection. There should have been no way for four bolts to end up in somebody’s pocket and not get put back or put in an envelope and attached to the door itself or something like that
The case was and I believe it was there was a recent space. I forget which one it was oh, it was the peregrine Lander going to the moon when they discovered that their landing guidance system was not operational because somebody on the ground had forgotten to turn the units on. There was a switch that needed to be engaged and that had not happened , think about it there was a step in the manufacturing process whereby once light our sensors or whatever they were were installed they had to be switched to operational paperwork probably not include that or it did but not highlighted big bold this must happen and it was probably a reason like somebody assumed well. These will be picked up during fall testing or I shouldn’t turn things on because who knows what happened is not hooked up to the power system who knows so many Perfectly valid reasons to do however it wasn’t discovered it was in lunar orbit, and all of a sudden they didn’t have the guidance that they needed to land really great engineers, solves that problem by using an experimental payload that was on the land to provide some data and it was almost good enough. I mean the lard just tipped over that’s all , had a problem is likely to be traced to work instructions. The step-by-step process details that you need to follow. It is very easy to take in the Aerospace startup environment. Just put it together. I know what we need to do. We’ve got to test this right away, let’s we don’t need any. We don’t need no stinking documentation take that mindset and extrapolate that into the real world , I heard recently that the Boeing Starliner issues with helium leaks and propulsion and SpaceX engineer saying happened to us what is the process? How did this actually happen that things were discovered in flight this may point to a basic issue with Boeing approach to things I know that was changed dramatically. I know I worked with incredible incredibly detailed planners who planned each and every step , which at that point in my career 40 years ago when I was trying to design a system or validate system, I did not appreciate somebody handing me a checklist thanks. Is this what needs to be done validate this checklist is this perfect and being you know, failed to tolerant and fail, Saff and all of these other issues that’s a different sort of display, but it feeds into the manufacturing process. It needs to be failed safe there have to be ways that you detect and deter mistakes Paperwork and documentation is how we do that I think that gets lost in some cases I know a number of people, for example working at many parts manufacturer that did welding of tubing. If you talk to the expert welders, they had little tweaks that they did for each of the parts that they did which made them experts and the ones who had the parts come out in high-quality , that was never yet that company did a fabulous job of documenting more constructions and training and doing all this yet they were missing nuances which became problematic was definitely an issue that they dealt with relatively successfully so what’s the bottom line if you are a space or you are a company trying to build Aerospace products where if something goes wrong you can’t fix it. In the meantime if you’ve got a coffee maker on your counter and it doesn’t work, you know nowadays of course it’s a circuit board. You have to buy a new one, but you could , you can troubleshoot that and these consequences are not that major. You just don’t have your coffee for a day or an hour. Do you go out on products and products that are large and absorbs so much energy it is essential that somebody take the step and go through step-by-step each and every little thing that happens and make sure that there are no open ended loops, for example Door plug has an issue needs to be removed to fix that great let’s go ahead and remove door plug needs to get put back in. There’s been a shift change new people there has to be documentation they put this in and that in the case of the Boeing thing the executive said the people who put the door plug-in, assumed that it was a temporary thing That it was just going to keep the rain out when the plane got moved outside, and that discrepancy, the lack of the bolts going in would be covered by somebody else and it wasn’t that’s a plan issue. It is not the fault to the planner. It is an unforeseen circumstance, but it’s those kind of and I’ve called them fault even though there’s no real fault, involved need to be followed in one needs to use common sense and think through everything so as a start up , don’t assume you just throw something together and it goes into space seek it and every step that’s all for now till next time
Comments