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.
view the rest of the comments →
[–] 19471569? ago
Although it cost them more to offshore the work, they made billions by winning guaranteed contracts from the poo nation.
Jew accounting always trumps engineering and QC.
This will be a windfall of money for (((lawyers)))
[–] 19489792? ago
Nevermind. Disregard >>13454849. I assume you mean lawyers will make money from lawsuits that will come from this. Lawyers certainly do not benefit from outsourcing in any way except maybe in cases like this when there are giant lawsuits as a result of shoddy work.