Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 19:47:17 -0700
Mr. Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net
The Welch Company
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111 2496
..
| Subject: | Boeing Case Study, SDS Requirements |
Rod,
Related to the SDS requirements you mentioned [in your letter on May 21, 2002]
at ...
..
I have thought about it somewhat, but not done a great deal with it. I need to
get code from Morris and get some idea of what is involved.
..
I looked at the FARS data [reviewed in the record on May 4, 2002...]
...and it does indeed express what I believe is an increasingly involved legal
situation.
..
All of that is swept under the rug and ignored unless it absolutely has to
be confronted. When it must be confronted the approach is to institutes some
large system that claims to do what is required and obfuscates the issue to
such an extent that it is not obvious that the requirements are not being
met.
..
Boeing just passed and ISO9000 something quality audit with flying colors,
and it was all due to careful briefings on where to find the right answers
when interviewed by auditors. The systems claimed do not in fact accomplish
what is claimed. The same sort of thing will happen with FARS compliance.
..
I just completed an analysis on some specific aspects of the match up
between the Space Station requirements documents and the design and
implementation, showing that there are huge holes even thought the last of
the documents is about to undergo customer review.
..
Earlier versions of the
same flawed documents have passed the same level of review without incident.
I expect that this one will as well. Just today we challenged the decision
to "close the book", freeze further changes, based on the substantial amount
of work remaining to be done to resolve some of the issues raised by this
analysis. I don't expect that this will matter, except that the review
deadline is going to be pushed out several weeks, and there may be time to
do something.
..
Funding for myself and my colleague who are doing this analysis runs out
July 5 or so, and all such analysis will cease. The effort will be moved to
Houston where it will be taken over by people who, in large part, have never
worked with the documents before.
..
The fact that I find problems does not endear me to management in any way,
but it doesn't matter as they ignore all such reports when it pleases them
to do so.
..
I remain convinced that a major cultural change will be required to shift
the organization to an intention to get the documents right before any tools
to help do so will be considered much less adopted.
You note that FARS requirements are ignored
http://www.welchco.com/sd/08/00101/02/02/05/04/095827.HTM#OI5L I expect that
they will continue to be unless something can be done to reverse the trend
of "deliver something, anything, soon enough that there is no major
complaint," and move toward a concept of getting quality and correctness as
fundamental qualities of the delivered products. This needs to happen at all
levels, not just the low level workers and their immediate management.
..
Thanks,
Gary
-----Original Message-----
| From: | Rod Welch [mailto:rowelch@attglobal.net] |
|
Tuesday, May 21, 2002 10:59 PM Johnson, Garold (Gary) L. Jones, Home, Morris; Harrow, Stuart Boeing Case Study, SDS Requirements |
Please see my letter at....
http://www.welchco.com/03/00050/61/02/05/2103.HTM#0001
Thanks.
..
Rod
Sincerely,