[the_mitsuhiko]

> My mom has a foundry here in Slovenia and at some point she decided to outsource production of some relatively easy stuff to China, because it seemed cheaper. Well, suffice it to say she stopped after the first batch arrived, in which only about 30% of products were up to standards, which are easy to track in die casting: a few precise measurements and an X-ray, all totalling 5 minutes of work.

So your expectation is that you can do it cheaper elsewhere to the same level of quality? There is high quality manufacturing in China and many companies do that. You can't expect to the the level of quality you want sending some plans over to a remote country to a dumping price.

For how good Chinese manufacturing can be just look at your apple computer.

[tzaman]

> For how good Chinese manufacturing can be just look at your apple computer.

The difference between Apple and FAA? Apple has nearly unlimited resources, so they can be present on site to make sure quality is top notch. FAA does not. Oversight makes all the difference.

[notahacker]

The FAA is not the only body in the world that pays attention to aircraft maintenance. Do you honestly think that airlines paying upwards of $500k for a maintenance check on a >$30 million asset that can do even more financial damage to their reputation have fewer resources and less interest in maintaining standards than the company that sells you a $500 phone which you'll probably trade in after 2-3 years.

[the_mitsuhiko]

First of all this discussion was about the mother of the person I replied to, not the FAA. Secondly this is not a question of money as it is a question of volume and communication. Manufacturing is not plane maintenance, it's about making a profit from margins. If you are willing to sacrifice a bit of your profit for a higher quality product and you have a large enough volume that producing in China even makes sense then you will be able to perform basic quality control.

Any outsourcing only makes sense if you have a high volume of goods. I can have a better quality control producing something here locally than to outsource it to the other side of the pond, even if the country is technologically more advanced than my own just because I lose the ability to oversee the process.

None of that is relevant to the FAA though. The FAA has a funding problem. It should play absolutely no role where planes are maintained. This is a general problem in the US where governmental oversight is traditionally badly funded. Even the IRS has not nearly enough employees for the job they do.

[briandear]

Also Apple can reject faulty products before they enter distribution. A faulty airplane repair isn't generally noticed until they sift through the wreckage.