Jet Parts Spark Debate on Checking Work --- Makers say staff can safely inspect own product for defects; employees disagree

"Should airplane mechanics be responsible for checking their own work?

The question is the subject of a long-simmering feud between workers and executives at major aircraft manufacturers. The debate has intensified as the aerospace industry deals with a series of costly manufacturing defects.

Workers say having a separate inspector sign off is critical for quality control in an industry with no margin for error. Union leaders at Spirit AeroSystems, a problem-plagued supplier to Boeing, say the company has put itself at greater risk of making mistakes by calling for self-inspections on certain tasks.

"We have inspectors for a reason," said Cornell Beard, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers chapter representing workers at Spirit's Wichita, Kan., factory. "These are airplanes; if there's a problem, we don't get to pull over on a cloud and kick the tires."

Executives at aircraft makers and suppliers say self-inspections are used on a small percentage of tasks and that technological advances have reduced the need for separate inspectors.

Manufacturing snafus this year at Spirit stymied production of Boeing's bestselling 737 MAX jet, delaying the company's turnaround. A Spirit spokesman said the latest problem of misdrilled holes on 737 fuselages didn't involve tasks in which mechanics checked their own work. The company says that self-inspections as a percentage of overall factory work are in the low single digits.

"Our quality-management system adheres to an industrywide, international standard with many checks and inspections as part of a multilayered approach," the Spirit spokesman said in a statement.

Boeing has largely done away with self-inspections following years of opposition from its largest union. The airplane maker had expanded self-checks as part of an effort to streamline production. The IAM appealed to federal safety regulators, and last year the Federal Aviation Administration sided with the union's view that separate inspections were needed for many of the tasks for which Boeing had removed them.

"You have to have a redundant system," said Jon Holden, president of an IAM chapter representing 33,000 Boeing workers in Washington state. "It's important to have an experienced inspector, someone who can be a second set of eyes and make sure the work is done appropriately."

An FAA spokesman declined to comment on the situation.

A Boeing spokeswoman said self-inspections account for a small percentage of inspection methods and are conducted "under appropriate oversight and controls and communicated to the FAA." She declined to discuss the company's reasoning for returning to a system of separate inspections.

Boeing a year ago also did away with self-inspections at its nonunion plant in North Charleston, S.C.

The company uses a range of techniques and tools to ensure work is free of defects, from X-ray and ultrasonic testing to laser scanning that ensures precise measurements, Boeing's spokeswoman said.

Air travel for Americans has never been safer. U.S. airlines have carried about 10 billion passengers over the past 14 years without a fatal crash. Strides in technology, along with stepped-up use and analysis of flight data and reports filed by pilots, mechanics and air-traffic controllers, have dramatically reduced accidents.

But the industry continues to grapple with costly and time-consuming quality issues hitting plane makers and airlines as they work to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.

In addition to the fuselage issue, Boeing in April paused deliveries of some 737 jets because of incorrectly installed parts, for which Spirit was also the supplier.

A manufacturing flaw in engines made by Pratt & Whitney parent RTX is requiring airlines to ground more than 600 Airbus jets in 2024.

Manufacturers say self-inspections pose no quality risk given the multitude of layers, safety checks and oversight involved in building an airplane. Holden, the IAM president, said mistakes potentially missed because there is no separate inspection would eventually be detected before the plane is in flight. But dealing with a defect late in the manufacturing process causes costly delays, he said.

Union leaders say companies have pushed self-inspections as a shortsighted way to cut costs; some executives privately argue that the union's interest in having designated inspectors is in the additional jobs the practice creates, since the inspector positions are union jobs in represented plants.

Exacerbating the issue is a shortage of workers to build planes in an industry that lost legions of its most qualified mechanics amid the pandemic shutdown and the grounding of 737 MAX jets after a pair of fatal crashes.

Both sides of the self-inspection debate cite a high-tech wrench to make their point.

Bill Osborne, a former Boeing manufacturing executive, said modern tools have rendered many inspection jobs obsolete.

A common inspection practice, he said, involves an inspector using a manual wrench to ensure proper torque on a fixture.

"The wrench would make a small noise when they reach the proper torque; then there is this guy who would listen for the click," said Osborne, who held executive posts in Boeing's commercial unit before taking over as quality chief of the company's defense business. "That's kind of outdated now, when we have a digital wrench that can record the torque automatically and then over Wi-Fi send that data to a server and create a permanent record."

Additionally, Osborne said, mechanics who check their own work are trained and certified to do so.

The IAM's Holden said he is familiar with the wrench argument, but doesn't think the tool clears the way to do away with inspections.

"If it's a digital tool, you have to set the parameters, you need to make sure the wrench is set correctly," he said. "There needs to be an inspector there to ensure it's done right; it doesn't matter if it's digital."

Such debates will play out more as manufacturing becomes more high-tech and increasingly involves artificial intelligence, said Bogdan Epureanu, a University of Michigan mechanical-engineering professor specializing in aerospace and automotive structures.

"It won't be about how a human will check their own work or how can a machine check the work," he said. "But about how can humans and machines work together to identify issues."" [1]

1. Business News: Jet Parts Spark Debate on Checking Work --- Makers say staff can safely inspect own product for defects; employees disagree. Terlep, Sharon.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 Dec 2023: B.6.