7 thoughts on “Thoughts On Engineering Standards”

  1. OMF, this could not be more right. Two years ago I tried to get the Very Big Aerospace Corp. of America and all their subs to sign-on to a single specification for their very special line of products. No dice — every engineering team wanted their own spec even though they’re all getting basically the same thing. They’re all married to their very special snowflake boilerplates.

  2. The problem is that the “independent technical experts” have no incentive to ever say Yes. If they say yes and something ever goes wrong, the “independent technical experts” ass(es) is in a sling; but if there are no problems, the “independent technical experts” get no credit. NAVAIR is the case study in this.

    1. If the Independent Technical Expert was a civil servant, their ass would never ever be in a sling. I never found personal accountability an issue in my experience with NASA.

  3. And people wonder why traditional aerospace companies and NASA can’t stick to a schedule and budget for damned near anything.

  4. Anyone who’s ever worked with IBM can list endless horror stories about standards. My suspicion is that once you make standards enforcement important enough so that it becomes someone’s primary role, their purpose in life morphs into stopping anything productive whenever they can find even a minor infraction. They become like traffic cops or hall monitors, wielding the only power they have, the power to stop things, and the bigger the things they can stop, the more powerful they feel.

  5. My client company has drafting standards which the checkers are supposed to use when reviewing drawing prints and UG CAD models. Everyone is supposed to follow the standards in a consistent manner. That is the theory.
    The reality is a little bit different. Each and every checker has their own intepretation of their standards, both the local ones and the ones off site, say in Mexico, eastern Europe or India. English isn’t their strong suit.
    For real fun, try working on a package with a Pakistani engineer, which has to be checked and approved by an Indian checker. I am not a ERDS mediator; keep it professional guys.
    My contract agency boss says that I shouldn’t take this stuff personally, but I am one of those people that hates to miss deadlines.
    The Fun Never Ends

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