Archive link?
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FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
41–50 of 267 posts
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#42[flagged]
Would be funny if you read the article and learned that the components were first purchased in 2019.
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#43However much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it longer-term. Conveniently, modern businesses and their leaders are judged and rewarded purely on short-term metrics.
>However much you can "save" by outsourcing...in a sufficiently fraud-plagued business environment, it's seldom worth it longer-term. Outsourcing is mandatory if you are a company in aerospace. How would you even start making an airplane without outsourcing?
Literally, true.
But, just like that fraud-plagued business environment, scale is what really matters. If you had 10X fewer suppliers, each with 10X fewer second-tiers, and so on down the chain...then how much easier would it be for Purchasing's QC people to stop sub-spec crap from reaching your factory floor?
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying from an untrusted source without any verification of your own in place. > Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? For all we know they bought it on wish.com. > Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? Random sampling of materials to determine if the delivery is fit for purpose should be the absolute minimum.
That's the point. The parent is blaming quality control steps of outsourced materials at Boeing (not third party). "Outsourcing = bad" is missing the point.
That is an interesting point of view, however, needing to distrust and expect fraud from every outsource agency sounds exactly like their point, which was not the elementary “outsource = bad” that you make it out to be.
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#45> Spirit is trying to determine where the titanium came from, whether it meets proper standards despite its phony documentation, and whether the parts made from the material are structurally sound enough to hold up through the projected life spans of the jets, company officials said. Spirit said it was trying to determine the most efficient way to remove and replace the affected parts if that ended up being necessary.
Why are they even considering keeping the counterfeit parts in?
Is the situation that Spirit AeroSystems believes the eventual answer will be that the aircraft can't be used with known-counterfeit parts, but they're dancing around liability or PR, or they don't want to grandstand upon their customers' toes?
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#46Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was the problematic outsourcing decision here? Buying your titanium from a titanium supplier? Is Spirit supposed to be refine and foundry all their own metal alloys? I agree that it's a little bonkers that Boeing spun off it's own aerostructures, but since it seems like Boeing has it's own problems with internal fraudulent inspection reports, this sure doesn't seem like an out sourcing problem per-se.
Not sure if this was technically outsourcing, but moving maintenance overseas to developing countries where agencies like the FAA have a much harder time to inspect the planes. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance...
A company willing to have employees accidentally die when they come down with a case of the whistleblows would do things to make oversight more difficult? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the point. The parent is blaming quality control steps of outsourced materials at Boeing (not third party). "Outsourcing = bad" is missing the point.
That is an interesting point of view, however, needing to distrust and expect fraud from every outsource agency sounds exactly like their point, which was not the elementary “outsource = bad” that you make it out to be.
No.
The parent said that the quality control should be on the supplier, not Boeing. This is instead of a joint problem with Boeing validating.
Look at the repercussions.
Boeing gambled on shaving procurement oversight and lost.
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#49How the fuck do you counterfeit titanium it’s one of those things that is either or it’s not.
If I show you a lump of metal and I tell you it is titanium how do you know I am not lying?
Another literal answer to this question - spark testing. Take a sample to a grinder/belt sander and observe the sparks coming off - fairly crude, but you should be able to tell the difference between aluminum (no sparks), steel (mostly orange-ish) and titanium (white)[0]. That's really only enough to tell you the general material type though - the alloy and temper are also extremely important, as others in this comment chain have said.
[0] - https://youtu.be/GnSBSKTC834?t=504 - not super happy with this video for a quick overview to provide to people, but this timestamp does cover this specific discussion; if I find a different video that covers the differences more broadly, I'll link it here.
Re: FAA investigating how counterfeit titanium got into Boeing and Airbus jets
#50How the fuck do you counterfeit titanium it’s one of those things that is either or it’s not.
Answer I: Real-world materials are vastly more complex than "it's titanium, or it's not". Not that our craptastic modern educational system teaches such things, unless you're taking specialized engineering courses or technical training. For a skim, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy
Answer II: In theory, the headline should have said something like "Components which had falsified documentation to assert that they fully complied with Aerospace Engineering Specifications [long list of cryptic technical specification codes here] for Titanium...". But, outside of Ph.D.-authored articles in the (fake name) Journal of Aerospace Engineering Research, that's not how mass-market modern journalism works.