Airbus Update

The digital design system has 500,000 models [drawings?], and all those must be kept in sync by mismatched computer-design systems.

More about the current state of the A380 at A380's troubles roiling Airbus by David Greising at Chicago Tribune.

An examination of what has gone wrong with the A380 is a much broader issue than parts that don't fit and computer systems that can't communicate with one another. Indeed, corporate and European politics are as much to blame for Airbus problems as the breakdown between computer-design systems in France and Germany.

Comments

[Deelip Menezes]

... and to make up for the money lost they end up firing poor workers, who had nothing to do with the problem in the first place.

"They continued working on an earlier-generation Catia 4. But that system renders images only in two dimensions, risking a design mismatch."

How extremely interesting. I guess all the V4 3D designs i've been getting for the last 10 years were just nightmares (well, the've been that, too..)

(one would think that Chicago Tribune would pick somebody with a brain for that assignment...)

[ralphg]

I, too, hoped the Chicago Tribune story would have more technical detail (and be technically more accurate), because it sounds like the paper paid for the reporter to travel to Europe.

But 'twas not to be.

[R. Paul Waddington]

"Bad tradesman blame their tools" It's and old saying but true; the twist here is simple. The management responsible for production tool implementation and their seniors are at fault. It has 'nothing' to do with the software, that's just an excuse, it's like blaming a hammer for bending a nail. Management, at many levels simply failed to know and understand their tools and it is patently obvious, if problems with CAD are the cause, again it was management's fault no procedures were in place to do even preliminary checks in the digital prototype. Lets hope the the managment in charge of the structural work have not been as carless. When the wirings running it ain't gonna be much good if the FEA didn't work either.
Always some of the wrong people suffer.