Boeing again 47

[waross]

The Health care issue brings back memories of a pulp-mill strike many years ago.
The exact details have faded with time, but the overall picture;
The microbes in a microbial digester were dying with the loss of feed stock.
There were serious and expensive issues going back into production with a compromised digester.
As I remember the digester was used to treat mill efluent and there were pollution issues involved.
The mill cut a side deal with the union to allow a truckload of molasses or something similar through the picket lines to feed the microbes in exchange for continuing workers' health care benefits through the strike.


--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

it doesn't but the skilled who can go somewhere else workers can walk with relatively minimal consequences. MBA's having a wank in the disabled toilets in the office complex have entirely zero options.

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

tbh honest the fleet integrity on boeing failure is more interesting globally because the usa has zero options and zero legal "things£

 

[dik]

This won't likely happen if there is a good dialogue between the two. Something 'broke down'.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[Brian Malone]

From Quality magazine, 9/2024, insights from a former employee:

https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/98236-if-its-boeing-im-not-going

I just found out this link allows a limited number of views without registering for a free subscription.

 

[IRstuff]

https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/98236-if-its-boeing-im-not-going[/URL]]While this work was happening in the early 1990s, several Boeing executives read a book called Re-Engineering the Corporation and decided to adopt an “outsourcing” model where we would buy COTS (commercial off the shelf) software versus building our own software tools. This initiative was formalized into a program called DCAC/MRM (Define and Control Airplane Configuration / Manufacturing Resource Management). It was basically a product configurator coupled with a PLM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. This was a digitalization or modernization initiative, aiming to reduce costs and simplify our processes. We had many internally built software tools in the early 1990s running on mainframe computers, and executives believed that purchasing these software tools versus building them, as well as migrating from Mainframe computing to Unix servers and applications in 1995, would reduce costs and streamline operations.

This confirms that Boeing had started down the path to perdition well before its acquisition of MDC.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[Lou Scannon]

Interesting. I remember when the small consulting company I worked for at the time purchased several obsolescent Computervision workstations at a good price from Boeing, back around 1989.

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

 

[JohnRBaker]

McDonnell Douglas went through that same phase only in their case they went out and bought a company which had already developed a CAD/CAM system and while there was a lot of initial resistance on the part of the people that developed MDC's internal software, the handwriting was on the wall as their code was all mainframe-based and the company they bought, United Computing, was running their software on smaller departmental level machines like DEC PDP's and Data General Eclipses, and because of these less expensive hardware platforms, United had been doing well selling into MDC's supply chain. Then in the mid-80's, General Motors did the same thing, deciding to go with commercially available software. Note that this was one of the motivating factors in GM's acquisition of EDS, that was to have them manage this effort corporate wide.

Note that I can speaking personally about this era since I started to work for MDC in that new CAD/CAM division in 1980 and was there during the transition across the company, starting with the aeronautics divisions and then moving into the military and eventually commercial aviation. As for the GM effort, I was transferred from SoCal to Detroit in 1986 to head-up the technical side of the sales effort to win the GM business. 17 months later, after we had won the deal, I was transferred back to SoCal to help R&D understand what it was that we had promised GM during the evaluation and negotiations portion of the sales cycle (it was a sort of 'Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is' sort of job offer). I remained with the company though all of the several buyouts, mergers and acquisitions that took place over the next nearly 30 years, finally retiring in 2016.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[3DDave]

It is rare for a company to be able to build better software in-house, though it is common for companies to try to save money by outsourcing and ending up underfunding the effort and therefore getting a crap solution.

How many companies have in-house computer designs, in-house OS independent development? Going to COTS for applications is no different than going to any supplier for any item - no one would demand a company build their own petroleum refinery as a start to formulate their own paint for painting their cars.

 

[3DDave]

Lou, which ones? The Nova cluster or the Sparc stations?

 

[SWComposites]

As I vaguely recall, those Computervision stations got dumped when Boeing transitioned to CATIA.

And, thanks a lot (not) for reminding me of the cluster **** that was DVAC/MRM.

For while in the ‘90s Boeing tried to develop their own CAD system; it finally got killed when they had to admit it was 10x slower than anything else on the market.

 

[JohnRBaker]

A bit of trivia. After Boeing decided that they couldn't develop a new system, they sold off that group to another company which our company eventually acquired while we were part of EDS. While we didn't really care much about the software package itself that they had been working on, it turned out that they had put together as rather capable group of code designers and programmers who understood many of the finer points of things like Bézier curves and surfaces, a skill set which we could use about that time as we were starting to do a lot work in this area ourselves, and these people fit very nicely into our R&D group. In fact, I made several trips up to Seattle when a couple of their people were working on one of the projects for which I was the product manager.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Lou Scannon]

3D, I honestly don't know... I wasn't too much into the tech.

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

 

[3DDave]

Lou,

Was it large monitors with a large digitization pad on a 300 pound desk or just a computer with a mouse that only worked with a metal mouse pad?

 

[FacEngrPE]

CAD (and the equipment it ran on) in 1986 was very different from what we currently have. In 1986 you could run 10 CAD workstations on a single Prime 850

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Computer[/URL]]The Prime 750 was a major upgrade. The Prime 850 is the dual processor version of the 750. It ran at 1.0 MIPS, had 2–8 MB of memory and 1200 MB of disc storage and a 9-track tape unit.

Boeing was once on the beading edge of computing technology.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1383602.1383652[/URL]]
Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library, SIGCSE Bulletin Vol. 40, No. 2 An industry perspective on the beginnings of CAD.
Abstract
This paper is a discussion of the early days of CAM-CAD at The Boeing Company, covering the period approximately 1956 to 1965. This period saw probably the first successful industrial application of ideas that were gaining ground during the very early days of the computing era. Although the primary goal of the CAD activity was to find better ways of building the 727 airplane, this activity led quickly to the more general area of computer graphics, leading eventually to today's picture-dominated use of computers. The paper started as an internal exchange of memories between some of the people primarily concerned, but is now offered as the possible start of a discussion involving other such initiatives during that period.

 

[SWComposites]

ah yes, the wonderful old days of having to mount physical tape reels on the tape drives in the computer room ..........

 

[JohnRBaker]

This is what CAD/CAM looked like when I first started using it, back in 1977:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9F5zIKuLBw

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[Oops409]

John, Looks like you used the Brady Bunch Clones for the video?

 

[Lou Scannon]

Was it large monitors with a large digitization pad on a 300 pound desk or just a computer with a mouse that only worked with a metal mouse pad?

My best recollection is the former. It was definitely a standalone, non-modular system.
I remember making several designs with it, under client or government supported projects: A composite LD45 cargo pod, a square steel tubing space frame for a prototype wrapped belt conveyor system, and high tech composite hockey stick. Only the wrapped belt conveyor made it to the prototype stage.

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

 

[JohnRBaker]

Oops, yes I always get a kick out of the hair styles in that film. Also, it wasn't very PC with poor "Janette" being the person who was working hard, but not being able to keep up with the new tech.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without