I worked on AWACS back in the early 2000s and we had an adversarial dynamic with our QA team. We would see them as 'just getting in the way', but I can now say, after working as a software developer, that without a strong QA (backed up by military laws), our planes would be flying with a lot of 'solutions' that would lead to unnecessary deaths.
It may seem like micromanagement, but small seemingly meaningless deviations from procedure can add up to big problems, particularly when dealing with space.
Indeed. And it doesn't work. Look at the sheer number of near world destroying accidents our military have managed to muster over the years.
I was actually working for a company that was a subcontractor to the USAF in the distant past. There is little room for individual creativity and ingenious problem solving in such a process heavy environment. It's actually like trying to work on an engineering project with Siri. The outcome of this is that only the problems allowed to be solved by the process are solved and none of the risks not identified by the process are reported, because it's too much paperwork already if you find a new one and you're not going to want your job to get any harder.
Ergo, all unidentified risks get taken because they are attractive solutions to many problems. Looking at the spanner incident pointed out by two sibling comments, the "dont carry heavy tools or anchor then when working on the big explodey thing" rule was not enforced and double-checked but hundreds of minor rules with precisely no benefit were being applied. Someone knew of that risk but didn't put the mitigation in place, probably because it was too hard.
Now military rigour and all of that doesn't like to be seen to be a turd sieve of a process so what happens is the answer is to add more processes, not look at the fundamental problem in the approach.
Overall, you need to focus on the key places where risk is considered high, but for most things, meh. Listening to people and making sure risk is managed effectively is a win.
Could you imagine betting your multi-million dollar satellite on whether the contractor used the approved torque wrench, or something they found at Harbor Freight? Hell, who needs a torque wrench? I've been doing this long enough I can do it by feel.
Using the right tool gets us to the moon. Complaining about how micromanagement stifles one's creative vision is how we get the shit show we call "software" today. Somewhere in the middle I'm sure there's a happy medium.
Not only can I imagine it I’ve lived it and I think it was great.
First: you are misstating the constraint: a procedure was defined by the manufacturer (in this case SpaceX) and they committed to the customer that they would use that procedure.
Second: in my case it was pharmaceutical manufacture and we were giving these drugs to patients for an approval study. We had defined a reproducible procedure that gave reproducible results. Deciding the change the procedure would require proving that the result of the change was the same as before said change. As a person who takes medication I am glad for GMP (the equivalent of ISO9000 in pharma manufacture).
In the case of an expensive rocket that launches something likely unrepairable after launch (and perhaps irreplaceable) I want to know that the mfr has figured out as many of the risk factors as possible and how to mitigate them.
I have a cousin in law enforcement, so yes I can, but it’s still maddening. The formula is essentially: a problem arises. Everyone covers their asses with red tape, and new rules and regulations are born, and never die. It’s a classic, yet very difficult-to-manage bureaupathology. The alternative is just that a friend of someone in power makes the tools.
When working on large complicated systems the best engineering approach is often to define a process (tools included) and then always repeat the same way. You’d be surprised how many things can go wrong when you stop acting repeatably. It will definitely seems like a waste of time until the first time you blow up a half billion dollar payload because someone unknowingly trashed an important component using the wrong wrench.
Don't they typically test rockets in outdoors test ranges? And aren't rockets normally supposed to be able to operate outdoors?
Of course there is going to be dirt, rocks and yes, even fecal matter. What are they supposed to do, blow their hot exaust gases into a climate-controlled cleanroom?
[+] [-] dustinmoorenet|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Floegipoky|8 years ago|reply
Could you imagine being so micromanaged that you'd literally need the Federal Government to change a manual to approve a tool you need?
[+] [-] andykee|8 years ago|reply
It may seem like micromanagement, but small seemingly meaningless deviations from procedure can add up to big problems, particularly when dealing with space.
[+] [-] klenwell|8 years ago|reply
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/634/...
> In 1980, deep in a nuclear missile silo in Arkansas, a simple human error nearly caused the destruction of a giant portion of the Midwest.
Spoiler: at a critical point, it involves a technician improvising with the wrong tool.
[+] [-] cjsuk|8 years ago|reply
I was actually working for a company that was a subcontractor to the USAF in the distant past. There is little room for individual creativity and ingenious problem solving in such a process heavy environment. It's actually like trying to work on an engineering project with Siri. The outcome of this is that only the problems allowed to be solved by the process are solved and none of the risks not identified by the process are reported, because it's too much paperwork already if you find a new one and you're not going to want your job to get any harder.
Ergo, all unidentified risks get taken because they are attractive solutions to many problems. Looking at the spanner incident pointed out by two sibling comments, the "dont carry heavy tools or anchor then when working on the big explodey thing" rule was not enforced and double-checked but hundreds of minor rules with precisely no benefit were being applied. Someone knew of that risk but didn't put the mitigation in place, probably because it was too hard.
Now military rigour and all of that doesn't like to be seen to be a turd sieve of a process so what happens is the answer is to add more processes, not look at the fundamental problem in the approach.
Overall, you need to focus on the key places where risk is considered high, but for most things, meh. Listening to people and making sure risk is managed effectively is a win.
[+] [-] mikestew|8 years ago|reply
Using the right tool gets us to the moon. Complaining about how micromanagement stifles one's creative vision is how we get the shit show we call "software" today. Somewhere in the middle I'm sure there's a happy medium.
[+] [-] gumby|8 years ago|reply
First: you are misstating the constraint: a procedure was defined by the manufacturer (in this case SpaceX) and they committed to the customer that they would use that procedure.
Second: in my case it was pharmaceutical manufacture and we were giving these drugs to patients for an approval study. We had defined a reproducible procedure that gave reproducible results. Deciding the change the procedure would require proving that the result of the change was the same as before said change. As a person who takes medication I am glad for GMP (the equivalent of ISO9000 in pharma manufacture).
In the case of an expensive rocket that launches something likely unrepairable after launch (and perhaps irreplaceable) I want to know that the mfr has figured out as many of the risk factors as possible and how to mitigate them.
[+] [-] QAPereo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] torpfactory|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] empath75|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] russdill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pvg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sctb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|8 years ago|reply
I prefer to swap words around in cases like this to make it unambiguous, for example, “soda bottles and poop...”
[+] [-] pvg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yipopov|8 years ago|reply
Of course there is going to be dirt, rocks and yes, even fecal matter. What are they supposed to do, blow their hot exaust gases into a climate-controlled cleanroom?
[+] [-] russdill|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_object_damage
[+] [-] trhway|8 years ago|reply