Re: Boeing Tech Pubs going offshore?

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

On 06/15/2003 9:01 AM, Mike O. (obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com) wrote:

>You are essentially claiming that quality can be inspected in, and the
>results will be just as good as if the quality were built in. This is
>almost never true. Engineers don't accept "quality inspected in" for
>manufacturing, and they shouldn't accept it for documentation either.

I don't know any engineers, or software or hardware developers for that 
matter, who will allow anything to go out without quality control, and I 
personally think that any company who releases documentation without at 
least one review cycle ("quality control" for docs) is doomed to publish 
crap.

The need for quality control doesn't disparage the efforts of the 
engineers, nor should it imply that the writers are publishing garbage 
that needs quality to be "inspected in." It's simply a fact... 
documentation needs testing like every other component of a product.

To tie this to my original point, if Boeing has been releasing quality 
manuals for decades that have avoided an epidemic of fiery crashes (that 
were suggested as the result of outsourcing), then Boeing's quality 
control is catching mistakes before they go out. There's no reason 
replacing their entire tech. writing group (internally, or by sending all 
of the tech writing jobs to Mexico, India, or anywhere else) should 
change that.

If, of course, Boeing were stupid enough to replace their quality control 
mechanism (or outsource it, same thing) at the same time as they replace 
(or outsource, whatever) their tech writing group, then they're asking 
for trouble. But I haven't read anything suggesting that's what they're 
doing.

Mike




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Robohelp X3, from eHelp, lets you quickly and easily create 
professional Help systems for all your Windows and Web-based 
applications, including Net.

Buy RoboHelp Office X4 by June 13th and receive
$100 mail-in rebate, Plus FREE RoboHelp Plus Pack.

Order RoboHelp today: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.