Boeing-led missile project has quality-control issues: Defense report

By Sun-Times Wire

A Boeing Co.-led missile project was cited for dozens of quality-control issues in a new report from the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office.

The report found 48 quality assurance problems with the Missile Defense Agency’s interceptor missile project. Boeing is the lead contractor and Raytheon Co. is making the missile warhead, formally known as an exoatmospheric kill vehicle. Raytheon was cited for 15 major and 25 minor compliance problems.

Problems found with software development and testing, supply-chain management and managing engineering changes “could inadvertently effect mission success,” the report stated.

A combination of cost constraints and failure-driven program restructures has kept the program in a state of change. Schedule and cost priorities drove a culture of Use-As-Is leaving the EKV as a manufacturing challenge, the inspector general said. With more than 1,800 unique parts, 10,000 pages of work instructions, and 130,000 process steps for the current configuration, EKV repairs and refurbishments are considered by the program to be costly and problematic and make the EKV susceptible to quality assurance failures.

The report noted the majority of quality management systems were in compliance and the Missile Defense Agency, Boeing and Raytheon had already corrected 44 of the 48 problems found.

h/t Reuters

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