Re: Boeing Tech Pubs going offshore?

[Mike Stockman <mstockman -at- mac -dot- com>]

On 06/14/2003 10:18 AM, Mike O. (obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com) wrote:

>And: Let's hope the next airline tragedy isn't blamed on outsourced
>maintenance manuals. 

That's kind of a baseless scare tactic, isn't it? Whether the doc is 
written in an office in Seattle or an office in Calcutta, the 
publications will be good if Boeing's quality control is good, and lousy 
if their quality control is lousy, and it has nothing to do with who's 
writing their manuals. Let's see what would happen:

Scenario 1: They outsource the manuals, and the results suck. The same 
procedures that would have caught lousy manuals in Seattle will catch the 
problems, send the manuals back for corrections, and delay the schedule. 
Boeing doesn't appear to have a habit of shipping out lousy manuals, or 
we would have heard of it by now, so we're probably safe here.

Scenario 2: They write the manuals internally, and the results suck. See 
Scenario 1.

Let's not raise up the spectre of crashing planes caused by outsourcing; 
there's no link. It wouldn't be outsourcing's failure if bad manuals are 
put into use; it would be a failure of Boeing's quality control 
procedures (whatever they are), and none of the articles I've read 
suggest those are changing.

Mike




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