Business

Former Boeing Inspector Alleges ‘Scrap’ Parts Ended Up On Assembly Lines

Published

3 months ago

2024-07-06

Boeing | CNN Image

A former Boeing quality-control manager claims that for years, workers at the company’s 787 Dreamliner facility in Everett, Washington, routinely retrieved parts deemed unsuitable for flight from an internal scrap yard and reassembled them on factory assembly lines.

Merle Meyers, a 30-year Boeing veteran, described to CNN an elaborate off-the-books practice used by Boeing managers at the Everett factory to meet production deadlines, including the removal of damaged and improper parts from the company’s scrapyard, storehouses, and loading docks.

Boeing | CNN Image

Former Boeing Inspector Alleges ‘Scrap’ Parts Ended Up On Assembly Lines

This year, several whistleblowers have raised concerns about Boeing factory lapses, including an official federal complaint from a current employee alleging that Boeing concealed potentially defective parts from Federal Aviation Administration inspectors and that some of those parts may have ended up in aircraft.

This comes on the heels of a string of public safety issues that have shaken the firm.

Meyers argues that the errors he witnessed were intentional, organized attempts to defy quality control mechanisms and meet rigorous production timetables.

Meyers claims that for more than a decade, starting in the early 2000s, about 50,000 parts “escaped” quality control and were utilized to manufacture airplanes. These parts range from minor components like screws to more complicated assemblies like wing flaps. For example, a single Boeing 787 Dreamliner contains almost 2.3 million pieces.

According to Meyers, most rejected parts were often painted red to indicate they were unfit for assembly lines. However, in certain circumstances, this did not prevent them from being loaded onto planes being constructed, he claimed.

“It’s a huge problem,” Meyers told CNN. “A core requirement of a quality system is to keep bad parts and good parts apart.”

Airplanes are highly engineered equipment with far greater safety standards than trains or automobiles. Their components, materials, and production procedures are heavily regulated.

Meyers, whose job was to uncover quality problems at Boeing, claims he was forced out last year and was given a severance settlement he cannot discuss due to a confidentiality agreement he signed with Boeing.

Since leaving the business, Meyers has interacted with current Boeing employees. He believes that while employees no longer remove parts from the scrapyard, the practice of putting other unauthorized parts in assembly lines remains.

“Now they’re back to taking parts of body sections – everything – right when it arrives at the Everett site, bypassing quality, going right to the airplane,” Meyers told me.

According to company correspondence dating back years, Meyers frequently raised the matter to Boeing’s corporate investigations team, citing what he calls flagrant violations of Boeing’s safety guidelines. However, Meyers claims that investigators consistently failed to enforce those restrictions, including dismissing “eye witness observations and the hard work done to ensure the safety of future passengers and crew,” he said in an internal 2022 email shared with CNN.

Meyers has also expressed concerns about Boeing’s quality difficulties to federal investigators, a Senate committee, and the New York Times.

Boeing did not deny Meyers’ claims in a CNN response. The corporation stated that it investigates “all allegations of improper behavior, such as the unauthorized movement of parts or the mishandling of documents,” and makes corrections as needed.

A swirl of controversy.
Meyers’ charges come as Boeing is embroiled in a scandal over its safety culture, including a criminal inquiry into whether it misled the FAA during the 737 Max’s 2017 approval. Two 737 Max crashes killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019. As CNN reported over the weekend, the Justice Department is negotiating an agreement with Boeing to address potential criminal culpability.

In January, a 737 Max’s door stopper blew off in mid-flight, provoking a wave of intensive scrutiny of the aircraft manufacturer, including federal and congressional inquiries. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has stated that he will step down before the end of the year. To address its safety concerns, Boeing has agreed to buy supplier Spirit AeroSystems.

Since January, other whistleblowers have come forward with new charges against Boeing.

Sam Mohawk, a current Boeing quality investigator, filed an official complaint last month, citing “a number of non-compliant parts making their way back to the airplanes for installation.” A Senate subcommittee probing Boeing made his complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration publicly available.

According to Mohawk’s complaint, the disappearance of nonconforming parts continues. “Boeing is still losing parts to this day,” his legal complaint states.

This week, a different whistleblower, Richard Cuevas, expressed concerns that Boeing and its key supplier, Spirit Aerosystems, utilized compromised parts and made alterations to “reduce bottlenecks in production and speed up production and delivery.”

Pulled from the scrapyard.
Boeing management’s pressure to keep production lines flowing is no secret. The 245-page House investigation report into the 737 Max deadly crashes includes a full chapter titled “Production Pressure.” Following the January 5 door plug blowout on a 737 Max, the FAA limited Boeing’s production line speeds.

Meyers recalls a high-pressure situation at the Everett factory, where assembly teams competed to find the necessary parts.

Meyers claims that after hours, employees would ask security guards to unlock doors and slip parts out of supply rooms or take newly delivered components that awaited quality tests by Meyers’ team. Similar parts meant for a different airplane model were available for the taking.

According to paperwork Meyers shared with CNN, in the early 2000s, Boeing personnel began collecting parts from the company’s scrapyard in Auburn, Washington, roughly an hour south of the nearly 100-acre industrial complex where Dreamliners were manufactured. According to Meyers, nonconforming items are only sent to the reclamation yard once rejected.

Meyers states that by 2002, staff at the reclamation yard were anxious that they would be held liable if scrap pieces were later discovered on an aircraft. So they requested staff to sign off on the removals, but their form was not an official Boeing document, so the removal was never recorded in the company’s quality management database.

Boeing | CNN Image

Former Boeing Inspector Alleges ‘Scrap’ Parts Ended Up On Assembly Lines

“These are bootleg forms that are not Boeing authorized,” Meyers confirmed. “The procurement organization would go down to our scrap reclamation yard and intimidate the employees there and say we need these parts bad.”

Lack of enforcement
Meyers claims he routinely flagged infractions for investigation but deemed the company’s attempts to investigate them inadequate.

“Their investigations are about analyzing excuses by process violators, and not taking action against those committing compliance violations,” Meyers stated in a 2002 email to Boeing’s corporate HR.

According to Boeing, Meyers worked on a quality team that “plays an important role in identifying issues, improving processes, and strengthening compliance in our factories.”

“We appreciate employees who raise their voice and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously,” according to a statement.

Meyers claims his Boeing superiors did not know how to deal with employees who had problems and that after decades with the company, he was eventually given a list of management complaints about his performance and offered a vague option to improve – or take a monetary compensation and quit.

“I was given a list of things to correct – my behaviors and my practices as a manager,” he told me. “It seemed like a personal development program…” But there was a financial incentive – or you could take the money and quit.”

Meyers stated that he never planned to become a whistleblower, but is now working with anyone who ask, including a Senate subcommittee investigating Boeing, to build momentum for reform.

SOURCE – CNN

Business

Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content

Published

15 hours ago

2024-10-04

Kiara Grace

Wellington, New Zealand – Google announced on Friday that it will stop linking to New Zealand news content and will withdraw its support for local media sites if the government passes legislation requiring internet companies to pay for stories published on their platforms.

The search giant’s promise to cut off Google traffic to New Zealand news sites, revealed in a blog post on Friday, mimics techniques it used as Australia and Canada prepared to implement similar laws in recent years.

It came after New Zealand’s government said in July that MPs would go forward with a measure requiring tech companies to reach agreements with media outlets generating news material in exchange for revenue sharing.

Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content

The previous administration introduced the law in 2023, and the government, led by the center-right National, opposed it.

However, the loss of more than 200 newsroom positions earlier this year — in a national media business that had 1,600 reporters at the 2018 census and is sure to have fallen since then — pushed the current administration to reconsider requiring digital companies to pay publishers for showing material.

The law seeks to limit the flow of advertising money from New Zealand news items overseas.

Google New Zealand Country Director Caroline Rainsford stated on Friday that if the legislation passes, the company’s engagement in the country’s media ecosystem will change.

“Specifically, we’d be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers,” according to her.

Google’s licensing scheme in New Zealand delivered “millions of dollars per year to almost 50 local publications,” she added.

The News Publishers’ Association, a New Zealand industry group, said in a written statement Friday that Google’s guarantee constituted “threats” and reflected “the kind of pressure that it has been applying” to the government and news outlets, according to Public Affairs Director Andrew Holden.

Government officials “should be able to make laws to strengthen democracy in this country without being subjected to this kind of corporate bullying,” said Mr. Trump.

Australia was the first government to try to force digital companies, including Google and Meta, to negotiate with news outlets under a law passed in 2021. Initially, the internet titans imposed news restrictions for Australians on their platforms, but both finally caved, negotiating arrangements reportedly worth 200 million Australian dollars ($137 million) per year, given to Australian sources for the use of their content.

However, Belinda Barnet, a media expert at Swinburne University in Melbourne, claims Meta has refused to renew its contracts with Australian news outlets while Google is renegotiating its initial deals.

As Canada prepares to enact comparable digital news bargaining regulations in 2023, Google and Meta reiterated their commitment to ending their assistance for the country’s media. Last November, however, Google pledged to provide 100 million Canadian dollars ($74 million) in annual financial support to news organizations across the country, indexed for inflation.

Colin Peacock, an analyst who leads the Mediawatch show on RNZ, New Zealand’s public radio broadcaster, stated that Google “doesn’t want headlines around the world that say another country has pushed back” by passing such a law.

Google Says It Will Stop Linking To New Zealand News If A Law Passes Forcing It To Pay For Content

While Google emphasized its support for local outlets on Friday, Peacock stated that one of its funding recipients, the publisher of a small daily, told a parliamentary committee earlier this year that the money he received was “a pittance” and insufficient to recruit a single graduate reporter.

Minister for Media and Communications, Paul Goldsmith, told The Associated Press in a written statement on Friday that he was still conferring on the next version of the law.

“My officials and I have met with Google on a number of occasions to discuss their concerns, and will continue to do so,” stated Mr. Musk.

Goldsmith stated in July that he intended to approve the measure by the end of the year.

SOURCE | AP

Business

OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us

Published

15 hours ago

2024-10-04

Kiara Grace

OpenAI's ChatGPT Surges to 200 Million Weekly Users

OpenAI might be the future of Silicon Valley, the next Google, the Great Disruptor, the slayer of late capitalist workplace tedium, etc.

However, as the business transitions from a nonprofit-led research lab to a for-profit AI powerhouse, now is a good time to examine OpenAI and its brilliant (if often tumultuous) leadership team. Because, if we believe OpenAI’s fundamental assumption that better-than-human artificial intelligence is unavoidable, and that it is the best brand to harness that potential, it’s worth pausing to ask the age-old business question: Really?!

Here is the deal: OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT, recently secured a $6.6 billion private investment round – the largest in Silicon Valley history — giving the fledgling company a $157 billion valuation, despite an uncertain route to profitability.

OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us

(For reference, public corporations with comparable valuations include Goldman Sachs and Pfizer.)

According to reports, OpenAI’s latest investors include major tech companies such as Microsoft (which has already invested more than $13 billion since 2019), Thrive Capital, Nvidia, Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management, and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

But it’s worth remembering that Apple was in talks to join that scrum, but it backed out at the last minute, according to The Wall Street Journal.

It was unclear why Apple, which did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, appeared to back out.

That being said, the iPhone maker does not engage in many strategic alliances.

But you don’t need an MBA to notice several red flags about OpenAI’s operations and the true worth of its technology.

According to the New York Times, the corporation appears to be spending significantly more money than it is coming in.

Let’s run some numbers:

OpenAI hopes to generate approximately $3.7 billion in revenue this year. (This revenue is mostly derived from ChatGPT premium subscriptions and the licensing of its technology to third-party developers.)
However, the Times estimates that it will incur costs of $5 billion.
(That’s not ideal, but it may not be a dealbreaker for a young, buzzy firm with big goals like OpenAI’s.)
Here’s where it gets a little wild:

Next year, OpenAI expects its income to more than triple to $11.6 billion. (To which I respond, with all due respect: Really?)
By 2029, it expects to generate $100 billion in revenue. This represents a more than 2,600% gain over the following five years. (Again: Seriously?!)
It’s unclear how, or if, OpenAI is striving to reduce its substantial cash burn. (The business declined to respond to The Times and CNN.)
When I asked Gil Luria, a managing director at D.A. Davidson, if my OpenAI pessimism was justified, he politely pushed back.

“The path from $0 in revenue to nearly $4 billion was clearly the fastest in history,” Mr. Luria added. “Nobody’s ever grown this fast at this scale, and they’re doing it again straight out of the gate with only the first few evolutions of their product set.”

Fair!

However, Luria stated that in order to reach $11 billion in revenue, “a lot of things have to go right, and very little can go wrong.”

What about that $100 billion prediction for 2029? “It’s completely unrealistic,” he admits. “It has nothing to do with reality.”

One approach for OpenAI to enhance its margins is to reduce costs. Even if it becomes extremely meticulous, the generative AI business faces an economic quandary: training and operating huge language models costs a lot of money, which is a structural cost that varies from prior tech booms, as CNBC reported last year.

In other words, the more people use ChatGPT, the more it costs to “compute,” as the business refers to it. Running these massive language models necessitates the use of numerous powerful semiconductors within massive data centers that consume a lot of electricity. It’s no surprise, however, that practically every major AI player wants to get their hands on good old-fashioned nuclear energy (as I discussed here earlier this week).

OpenAI’s challenges include more than just the economics of AI.

There’s also a Bravo-worthy soap opera going on with its founders, nearly all of whom have gone, and board of directors.

In 2015, CEO Sam Altman and ten others launched OpenAI as a nonprofit with the purpose of “building safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.”

OpenAI Just Secured A Ton Of New Cash. Now It Needs To Wow Us

Then it evolved into a hybrid: a for-profit firm led by a nonprofit board.

With 1,700 workers, it is now prepared to mainly abandon the nonprofit model in favor of a “public benefit corporation” — effectively a for-profit company with do-gooder intentions.

Several executives have left during this transition, raising concerns about Altman’s devotion to the firm’s initial objective in the face of, say, boatloads of cash.

What happens now? With new funding, OpenAI can focus on the next iteration of ChatGPT, which, according to Luria, is one of the Big Things that must go right for the company. Whatever OpenAI’s next product looks like, it must knock our socks off.

“If GPT-5 is not an order of magnitude better than GPT-4, their runway gets considerably shorter,” I heard him say.

“If we’ve gone from a model that’s as smart as a high school student to GPT-4o being as smart as a PhD student, the next version must be getting us closer to a model that’s smarter than any human.” to make the investment worthwhile.”

SOURCE | CNN

Business

McDonald’s Chicken Big Mac is Heading to the U.S. Next Week—for a Limited Time.

Published

2 days ago

2024-10-03

Salman Ahmad

(VOR News) – It will soon be possible for American customers who frequently visit McDonald’s to order the Chicken Big Mac, a dish that has shown a great deal of popularity with those specific customers.

This will become available to them in the not too distant future.

When it was initially released in this nation in 2022, it was entirely sold out in both Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland due to its extreme popularity.

The sandwich may be found on menus everywhere because it has previously been placed on menus in every part of the globe. This is due to the fact that menus already feature it. It was found that both of those countries have this same situation after further inquiry.

McDonald’s scheduled this object’s return to the US for Thursday, October 10, prior to its occurrence.

There is extremely little chance that the recently added item to the menu will remain available for an unusually long time. This is due to the extremely low likelihood that this will occur. This is specifically because the availability of the new item is contingent upon the availability of supply.

It has been demonstrated by the announcement that the rumors were accurate in what they reported based on the information they had.

McDonald’s has a history of doing many different things that are thought to be improper. These practices had previously been identified.

There was a sandwich that was served in Los Angeles the weekend before that was kind of similar to what you are eating right now. You have this sandwich at your disposal. The sandwich was easily obtainable.

The pop-up restaurant McDonnell’s by Chain, located in Los Angeles, was only open for business on one day. The only people who can enjoy this exclusive eating experience are customers. On that specific day, customers were able to enjoy the restaurant’s signature meal, which is widely known as “The Chicken Sandwich.”

The dinner that was being served to attendees could be purchased. This dish’s recipe was remarkably similar to the one utilized by McDonald’s for their Chicken Big Mac, which had two chicken patties instead of the original Big Mac’s two patties made completely of beef.

Two beef patties were used to create the first Big Mac. There were two beef patties utilized in the creation of the original Big Mac.

McDonald’s and the company’s formulas had many similarities.

It was McDonald’s that applied the formula. Regarding the toppings used, there is no difference between the two scenarios that have been described in full.

Customers expressed such high delight that they even called it a McDonald’s knockoff. This is because they found it to be quite satisfactory. They did this because they were quite happy with how things turned out.

The story takes an unexpected and shocking turn when it is revealed that McDonald’s was the establishment that was there the entire time.

The company released a press release that said, “We are able to serve up more than just a sandwich.” This message was sent to McDonald’s USA Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Tariq Hassan.

“We are able to serve up more than just a sandwich,” These are the words from the website of the company that provided the information, from which the information was taken.

“We are able to do this by tapping into some of our fans’ biggest passions, which range from live-streaming to dupe culture.” “There truly is something for everyone to enjoy in this campaign and we’re bringing experiences that will surprise and delight them, all before the Chicken Big Mac hits restaurants.”

SOURCE: NY