Comments on: Top MDA Man Slams Companies’ Quality

By: OhBother

OhBother — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:08:35 +0000

I have worked on boths sides of the fence and there is plenty of blame to go around. Contractors do very little without direction from the customer. The customer places fingers in the ears and hums loudly and does not not ask questions where the answer might be bad. Design reviews are stacked with good news and the bad news migh be buried in the data package somewhere. Program Managers are under intense presure to make sales, especially in publi companies, so they force shortcuts or take critical things out of the tasking. The rank and file engineers protest loudly as do their technical managers, but the Program manager ignores them.

Something tells me the parachute failed probably because some program manager took a way funding for the correct level of testing and quality checks.

By: roland

roland — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:04:17 +0000

When it comes on defense and counter offensive , it all breaks down on quality and quantity.

By: robertro2

robertro2 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:28:55 +0000

they now are worried about “QUALITY” it should have been there long before this.….these go for one flight,no return,and no refund.…lets strap a few QC people to them,then maybe they will get it right.…..

By: JCitizen

JCitizen — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:31:52 +0000

All good comments! I can’t help but wonder if any of the chips in these studies are made in China? Need I say more?

I saw a brand spanking new factory being built by Texas Instruments that looked three stories high and four football fields long and two wide. See where I’m going with this?

If the dollar drops any more it will actually be cheaper to build chips in the US than overseas. Then we’ll see what becomes of the electronic industry world wide. Reputation can make or break a company, and a country!

By: ClovisMan

ClovisMan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:34:58 +0000

you must be a MDA manager

By: ClovisMan

ClovisMan — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:34:09 +0000

Jimmy, what happened between the 50, 60 and 70s and now? Back then we had leaders who worked their way up through the technical fields. They did not have to know everything but they learned there are many details of putting complex systems together and it takes many different skills. Now we find that our leaders are History, Art and Business majors who worked their way up by being someones favorite pet.
We are now expected to do engineering by powerpoint and the product developers have found that since the buyer is no longer smart they can reduce the level of effort and development testing and increase the company profits. All at no costs to them. We keep giving them more money and then expect a different answer.
I only Hope Sec. Gates has the will to bring out the axe for a few more swipes.

By: comradeputinski

comradeputinski — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:33:45 +0000

Reading the comments, as an Engineer who worked many years in various Govt. contracts, I can say "some are correct, some are incorrect." I see as a problem something looking like the "American automobile Quality, Engineering and Leadership" problem. We became so much used in "the last fashion in Quality" and I can mention some since 1980 about Statistics, TQM, Lean Mfg. and Six Sigma, ISO9000, etc. Are they good or bad or what? If we just consider them as a panacea for solving all our problems, we loose the true meaning of the Qualtiy. They are good, but not to be applied because this or that is the "today's buzzword". I was responsible for a Quality Dept. receiving items from companies who were "Quality Certified" by the Contractor, but the Quality was lamentable, at best. See continuation in the next comment!

By: comradeputinski

comradeputinski — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:29:01 +0000

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:19:37 +0000

I am not an engineer, I am a Contracts Manager. To me the path forward maybe to look a the path past. We had great engineering achievements in the 50–60-70s. What is different now than then? Was it more attention to basic engineering, rather than documenting processes? Was it the (hated) MIL-SPECS? Or is the technology just getting too complicated to assess all the pitfalls? Smarter guys than me might want to think about this.

By: Ron Garant

Ron Garant — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:48:58 +0000

Missile defense, unlike other major defense acquisition programs, has no miltary department leadership or support.
The office of the secretary of defense that the MDA reports to couldn’t run a 2 car funeral.

Until middle defense is assigned to the military departments where it will have to compete with other defense priorities it will remain a fumbling organization with no adult supervision.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:16:10 +0000

This is an agency allowed to bypass nunn mccurdy, and create their own test targets, which cost almost as much as the interceptor…
When things go well, of course they’ll get an intercept. When things go wrong, it’s the contractors fault. Go figure.
What this organization must have is clearly focused goals and an INDEPENDENT test environment. An organization if you will whose sole purpose is to conduct testing for any programs we come up with, funded by the programs themselves who are responsible for proving their weapons/products.

By: BOOMER

BOOMER — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:15:15 +0000

The blame is on both sides here. On the govt side you had a hiring freeze and personnel cuts for years. A lot of the engineers are in thier 60’s now and retiring, there are not as many American’s obtaining engineering and scietific degrees as there are foreigners, so since you have to be an American to work for the govt in these roles you dont get to pick from the cream of the crop and most new personnel aint worth the air they breath because our education system sucks big time. Contractors are in the same boat. I know of one contractor who has missle contracts that actualy hired the quality engineers that were fired from NASA after the columbia accident (the ones who said the gasket was ok to use). This doesnt give me a warm fuzzy, nor the fact that the govt could not demand they not be allowed to work on govt contracts. MDA does do things different. On the Govt side the contractors have to submitt all of thier testing procedures and inspection equipment to the govt for review, it has to be approved by a team of various types of engineers and quality personnel on paper first, then a first article is done under our observation to observe all the processes and testing. it is up to us to approve them or not, then afterwards govt QA are supposed to monitor all operations, review all documents, test samples, and accept all product off the production line. But as I said before — due to the insufficient number of quality personnel this does not happen as it should and the contractors take advantage of it.

By: milret152

milret152 — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:20:13 +0000

Since this issue applies across the board issue, perhaps the problem is with MDA and the contractors are only reflecting behavior that has been reinforced by a poorly run defense agency. These contractors were all contracted after MDA’s selection process and then allowed to continue to perform under the surveillance of MDA. Remember all the other products prior to launching that failed target had to be reviewed AND APPROVED by MDA (engineering drawings, QA plans, reliability growth plans, etc.) Also remember, in 2006, the DoD IG (D-2006–060) blasted MDA for serious issues with their Systems Engineering practices. There have also been numerous critical reports issued by GAO (type in Missile Defense Agency in the report search box on the GAO website and you will get 82 results). Lastly, MDA has never been held to the DoD acquisition process (DoD 5000, JCIDS/JROC, and PPBE budgeting) which brings checks and balances with entrance and exit criteria to the development, testing, fielding and proper appropriation funding processes. I say, MDA, first heal thyself.

By: ClovisMan

ClovisMan — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:36:22 +0000

The Ballistic Missile Defense is the equivalent of a sick man who experiences problems and sometimes is able to work. What they are suggesting in Quality Systems is the equivalent of giving the sick man a haircut, nail job and new suit and then putting him back to defend the nation. No matter how many QS people you put on the job it will not fix the problem. It runs much deeper than that. MDA permits the product developers to determine what level of developmental testing is required and of course they will only do tests they know they can pass. Tax payer loses again. It is not a contractor or government it is a wrong set of skills. Too many managers and no real technical.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:11:59 +0000

Speaking as a contractor: It is not WE who insist on Six-Sigma ISO CMMI buzzword-of-the-year certification. It’s the CUSTOMER who believes that such things are the magic route to quality. It’s the CUSTOMER who considers a documented process more important than the ability to quickly identify and mitigate problems. Contractors, in general, don’t mind showing the customer that they know how to do things; the problem comes when the customer states that past performance is irrelevant without a CMMI Level 3 Compliance Certification Document. What have you done for us *lately*, and all that.

Although, as you say, most of it is a staffing problem. It’s easy to *say* “there should be shoulder-to-should reviews”, but when there aren’t enough shoulders to go around, paper has to try and suffice.

By: ClovisMan

ClovisMan — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:12:36 +0000

You can put a massive amount of Quality Control Folks and you will not solve the technical problems in MDA. The Organization is staffed with Engineering Management but hardly any Engineering Technical. This includes both Government and contractor. You can verify the quality of the components but until they learn what real systems engineering is about you will keep seeing on-going problems. It takes more than just hooking up the right components to make things work in such a harsh launch and space environment. You need robust software and electronic systems that have been qualified by experienced teams and by experience I do not mean Powerpoint experience.

By: BOOMER

BOOMER — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:27:30 +0000

The above comment is correct in many ways — many contractors feel that because they have SIX SIGMA and ISO cert or compliance that there quality is beyond approach. But this is far from the case. I have performed many ISo compliance audits on contractors and find most have lost sight on what ISO is about (Identifying exactly how you are going to provide the best quality product to your customer.) and six sigma has become a total waste of time and money period — what started out as how to employ common sense and perform risk assessments to improve processes and quality has become a fiasco of how to write an impressive report with displays rather than identifying and fixing the issue. Six sig and ISo are total conflicting the way six sig is now used but ISO should over rule because it identifies fixing and documenting the problems once identified rather than doing a one year case study. Quality is and has been an issue at all contractors and the Govt does not have ample manpower to provide QA inspectors at contractor facilities and thus rely on DCMA to do inspections and acceptance for them, but DCMA is also short of manpower and in most cases DCMA assigns one individual a district with 4 or more contractors to oversee which means he only has time to keep up with the monthly invoice signing and not enough over the shoulder time. All of this is because of the major down sizing of the govt QA staff and close down of full govt facilities (now operated by contractors)under Clinton’s botched era. The DOD needs about 8000 more QA’s to be able to properly oversee contractors. At the same time we need better contracts written in plain language so they cannot be questioned as to thier meaning, most are like reading a book of Nostrodamus.

By: Drake1

Drake1 — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:27:48 +0000

CDI wasn’t far off base on this one.

By: Retired Now

Retired Now — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:11:34 +0000

You have to wonder if the balance between PROCESS and PRODUCT has swung too far one way. Both are important and related; however, perhaps the motto for MDA could be something like this, ” Process is our most important product ! ” Before I retired I was brainwashed with many Lean Six Sigma and ISO 9001 and CMM SEI Level certifications. Too much emphasis on things like DAU DAWAI and not enough detailed study of basic engineering. In the case of new Navy warships like USS NEW YORK, the NAVSEA PMS-317 group motto might appropriately be, ” Process is our ONLY product “. Too many managers and even tech/engr know more about Process and way too little about producing quality products.