Posted on 09/06/2009 9:41:10 AM PDT by em2vn
A manufacturing problem with the U.S. Navy's new Virginia class SSNs (nuclear attack subs) has delayed the commissioning of a new boat, the USS New Mexico. The ceremony will be delayed from November 21st, to sometime in January or February. The problem has to do with bolts that were not manufactured to specifications. These bolts hold together the track system that is used to move torpedoes and other weapons around the "weapons room". The poorly manufactured bolts will hold the tracks together under peacetime conditions. But in the stress of combat (like depth charges or violent maneuvers) they are likely to fail. The navy not only wants to get the proper bolts, but also is inspecting hundreds of other bolts in the weapons room, and perhaps other items as well. This anxiety is because the bolt situation is not the first manufacturing problem the Virginias have encountered lately.
(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
Smaller Companies are easier to keep track of.And this translates into contract violations how?
Been there, done that. 18 yrs on several different ‘activities’. We never cheated either.
Yours?
EVERY time we pulled out to sea we spent more time UNF*CKING thing that the shipyard screwed upWould I be right in assuming this was done by union labor? In say, the north east?
Our nation is sick, and I’m afraid the cure will be bitter indeed.
The history books that have been used to teach our children for the last 50 years have been written by people who hate America and everything it stood for, and the history classes have been taught by people who thought that the wrong side won the cold war. For the most part, people who have been in the work force for the last 20 or 30 years have no concept of American exceptionalism, of what a wonderful and amazing thing this country is. To them, there's nothing special about America, and for far too many, America is evil and they hope for change... Which explains why 53% of the presidential voters voted the way they did.
To them, a job working for a defense contractor is just a job, nothing else. Nobody will notice. It's no big deal. BTW, this is the same attitude that was rife in the labor force of the Soviet Union.
Mark
Our nation is sick, and I’m afraid the cure will be bitter indeed.
The history books that have been used to teach our children for the last 50 years have been written by people who hate America and everything it stood for, and the history classes have been taught by people who thought that the wrong side won the cold war. For the most part, people who have been in the work force for the last 20 or 30 years have no concept of American exceptionalism, of what a wonderful and amazing thing this country is. To them, there's nothing special about America, and for far too many, America is evil and they hope for change... Which explains why 53% of the presidential voters voted the way they did.
To them, a job working for a defense contractor is just a job, nothing else. Nobody will notice. It's no big deal. BTW, this is the same attitude that was rife in the labor force of the Soviet Union.
Mark
No competition. Why worry about quality when you customer has no place else to go to get their ships built? There is a single company building carriers. A single company building large surface combatants. Two companies building destroyers. Two companies building submarines. Twenty or thirty years ago there were quite a few more.
No competition.Gee. That explains it all.
No mention of altered 'test' results, fudged QC activities, acceptance of non-conforming materials that FAILED at incoming QC, no mention of inspectors being bought off, no mention of using materials with NO trace-ability back to a legitimate vendor, just the old hand-waving saw about 'no competition'.
Great. You have it all nailed down.
The Shipyard is question(in my case) was Norfolk Naval Shipyard(Portmouth, VA). I have heard similer stories from Newport News(VA), Puget Sound Naval SY(WA) and Ingalls (MS). I have heard no stories from Bath(Maine) or Electric Boat(Gen Dyn)(CT). But I am sure that there are similer stories there too. And yes ALL of these are Union.
A friend of ours is the head of Edgewater Boats, which he bought many years ago and has successfully built up.
He has a military contract of some kind for coastal patrol boats, and he delivers.
I can’t put my hands on a photo of the military model, but here’s the Edgewater website with some pics. Very nice boats:
http://www.edgewaterboats.com/
Aircraft are no different. The one exception to both of these situations was my experience in Japanese shipyards, and aircraft depots. They work six days a week, their work was good, and the vessels and aircraft were in really good shape when they came out.
Well said.
I doubt the average reader has any idea just how demanding the testing is for materials used in a nuclear sub. I worked in the pre-test lab at a shipyard that was building four such subs, in the early 60’s. Every single piece of pipe, each fitting, every valve, everything that was to be used in the subs was brought into the lab and tested under conditions as near to on board conditions as possible. It was a huge part of the sub building program. This was the days before computers had worked their way into every facet of business life and my job was to record by hand each and every piece that was tested, when it arrived, who tested it, the outcome of the test and who it went to after testing. If an item failed the job got worse, much worse.
I still have nightmares about not being able to find some tiny little valve that was misplaced!
Really no different, in principle, than the folks in Boston who built the tunnel with the collapsing roof.
Fraud is a constant risk in quality assurance groups.
Politicall correct types and supporters of free trade & outsourcing won’t like this question, but were these defective parts manufactured overseas?
I realize it's much more fun to say "It's the Union's fault".
I realize it's much more fun to say "It's the Union's fault".So if its not, what is it?
Who is cutting corners?
The contractor? Or the [union] labor he hires to do a job?
Who is cutting corners?
Never forget that your ship/aircraft/weapon was built by the lowest bidder.
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