It remains the mystery at the heart of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max crisis: how a company renowned for meticulous design made seemingly basic software mistakes leading to a pair of deadly crashes. Longtime Boeing engineers say the effort was complicated by a push to outsource work to lower-paid contractors.
The Max software – plagued by issues that could keep the planes grounded months longer after U.S. regulators this week revealed a new flaw – was developed at a time Boeing was laying off experienced engineers and pressing suppliers to cut costs.
Increasingly, the iconic American planemaker and its subcontractors have relied on temporary workers making as little as $9 an hour to develop and test software, often from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace – notably India.
In offices across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, recent college graduates employed by the Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. occupied several rows of desks, said Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer who worked in a flight-test group that supported the Max.
The coders from HCL were typically designing to specifications set by Boeing. Still, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code,” Rabin said. Frequently, he recalled, “it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
And Apple wants to move phone manufacture there? Good luck.
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[–] 19458108? ago
GM collapsed in part because from 98-06 they made cars that don't start. They messed up bad before pajeet had a chance to drop a deuce on them.
[–] 19505920? ago
some say it was increasingly insane Union contracts finally hitting the breaking point.
You can only pay Niggers $50/hr ($75 in today's money) wages&benefits while on furlough ("jobs banking") to NOT build cars for so long.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/automakers-jobs-bank-program-pays-laid-off-workers-to-do-nothing
no mentioned: when they are asked to return, they are butt-hurt and demand "retraining" etc.