|
Boeing NEEDS the Tanker contract because IDS isn't winning any other worth while contracts and work is drying up. I could not believe the rationale for originally awarding the contract to NG and Airbus when their airframe isn't capable of refueling the entire Air Force Fleet. The decision was corrupt and incompetent. They made the right decision of postponing the contract until the new administration takes over.
It is fundamentally wrong to award this contract to any non-US company. Why? Because the intellectual property of building US tankers would be exposed to Airbus. You're enabling foreign competitors! Anybody else see that as a problem? Might also want to take this argument up to the Boeing CEO. One of the biggest issues in the IAM strike and the approaching SPEEA negotiation is offshore outsourcing.
The Boeing Company's strength is making the best airplanes in the world. We have the smartest and most brilliant engineers that know how to build planes better than anyone else. However, when you pull a global outsourcing stunt like they did with the 787, you're not only putting the company at the mercy of your suppliers (which is currently killing the 787), you're enabling future competitors by paying offshore suppliers to build the plane for you....thus training future competitors to compete against you down the road (read China, Russia, and Brazil). At the same time you're immense talent pool of engineers are approaching retirement and you're risking loosing your knowledge base by not training new engineers to replace the experienced ones.
When you use this kind of outsourcing model, you're only weakening your company and your ability to compete down the road. The early Boeing model was built off the of the same organization as a Navy ship crew. You'd have 3 people who are capable of doing a job. You'd have a senior engineer that has 20+ years experience that mentors a highly capable engineer with 5-10 years experience, and then you have your entry level engineer that is in training. As employees retire, everyone does a shift up the chain so the company doesn't loose any skills of knowledge. This model doesn't exist in Boeing any longer.
I am very skeptical if Boeing will be capable of designing another aircraft past the 787. I don't think they will have the in-house talent to design anything at the scale of a 787 if they continue on with this business model. Boeing is on its way to becoming an integration company that outsources all of the real work to suppliers and doesn't have any experience or knowledge of designing and building things themselves.
I know business wonks will sound off saying that global outsourcing is the only way to compete in a global market. I see it as sacrificing quality to help the bottom line.
|
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
Linear Mode
