A recent CNN story about a former Boeing employee who refuses to fly on the Boeing 737 Max went viral, throwing fuel on the fire over quality issues at the company.

For manufacturing professionals, missing bolts — although serious — are not especially surprising. It’s not widely understood, but it is true that even 100% human visual inspection of a specification or attribute will not even come close to achieving zero-defect production.

Part of the reason is because of the natural limitations in human inspection, but a major issue is that inspectors are subject to the same personal issues that degrade their performance as any other employee. Legal and illegal substance use and abuse, physical illness, mental health issues and physical disability can all play a part.

How a corporation deals with underperforming quality control personnel is another factor. Automation of inspection processes will help, but can sometimes introduce a new level of uncertainty in quality assurance processes. Perfection will always be elusive, but statistically, the accident rate for air travel is at historic lows.


* * *
ABOUT END OF THE LINE:
Manufacturing veteran James Anderton expresses his compelling and unique opinions about the state of the manufacturing sector and the engineering industry more broadly. He shares his thoughts and insights to help engineering and manufacturing professionals navigate through the challenges of world events, the blending old with new technologies, evolving processes, gaps in skilled labour, in an effort to help maximize productivity of their daily operations. Occasionally, he just likes to vent.

James is a former editor of trade publications in the automotive, metalworking and plastics industries with contributions to a wide range of print and on-line publications. He also brings prior industry experience in quality and manufacturing for a Tier One automotive supplier.

* * *
JOIN ENGINEERING.COM:
Easy, free. Join and get access to more stories, videos, white papers, research reports made for the engineering professional. Customize your profile to follow topics you care about and engage with the global engineering community. https://engineering.com

* * *
STEM GAMES:
Play some fun engineering-based STEM games on engineering.com:
https://www.engineering.com/resources...

* * *
ENGINEERING.COM TV:
Watch in-depth engineering videos made for the engineering professional and found exclusively on engineering.com TV:
Panel Expert Roundtables: https://www.engineering.com/viewAll?c...
For the Design Engineer: https://www.engineering.com/viewAll?c...
For the Manufacturing Engineer: https://www.engineering.com/viewAll?c...

* * *
#aviation #manufacturing #qualityassurance