We reach the top of our list and today we get to number five. Here we find Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (1889-1972). This Ukrainian who emigrated to the U.S. in 1919 (nationalized in 1928) founded the Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation where he designed the first major oversea seaplanes for Pan American Airways. However, his name will always be associated with the development of the first operational helicopter. His work culminated with the VS-300, the first free flight took place on 24 May 1940. His successor, R-4 was the first mass-produced helicopter in 1942.
Therefore in my list, number 5 goes to Sikorsky.
As a follower of our blog you know, that our best weapon is always the irony, but today we will talk about a sensitive issue with which not everybody will agree.
Today we will talk about the rules and their impact on engineering problems in the real world.
I hope we agree, that rules are fundamental in many aspects, from regulating relations between individuals or countries, to uniform screws or resistors we use in our daily lives as professionals, because they provide a framework reference with which we all know what to expect and that improves our work. These kinds of rules are great tools that allow the exchange of ideas and products within a common coordinate for all. So far, I have no objection.
I hope we agree, that rules are fundamental in many aspects, from regulating relations between individuals or countries, to uniform screws or resistors we use in our daily lives as professionals, because they provide a framework reference with which we all know what to expect and that improves our work. These kinds of rules are great tools that allow the exchange of ideas and products within a common coordinate for all. So far, I have no objection.
Although this seems reasonable, in some cases it hides inside the seed of perversion (what we would call the serpent's egg). What is believed to be beneficial for your business development may become, in the wrong hands, a heavy load that drag us down to mediocrity and uniformity far away from the spirit with which it was, hypothetically, designed.
I am referring, in particular, to the design standards that are followed in almost all engineering areas. In particular, and please excuse this particularization, I mean the normal ones used in the aviation industry, but I am absolutely sure that everything we say here is applicable to other branches of knowledge with some minor nuances.
Any human activity is subject to errors. This is completely normal, because we make things. There is only one group of people that never fail. Those people who don’t do anything at all. Once we have realized this, the fundamental aim is trying to reduce the number of possible mistakes in our designs, especially when the lives of others depend on it.
Some time ago I read in the Internet some statements of a NASA director, who in an unprecedented sincerity outburst, and may be after a few drinks, stated that nowadays the United States would be unable to put again a man on the moon. Of course, it wasn’t a problem of lack of technical knowledge. It’s simply, that the rules would hinder it.
Parodying what he said, you can conclude that the capsule should be covered with a lead shield so that the astronauts would not be exposed to the space radiations and due to the required load factors the capsule should be reinforced with steel beams. And so on.
At that time I remembered Neil Armstrong (who I had the privilege to see, when I was young, putting his foot down on the moon), Buzz Aldrin and Micheal Collins and all these hundreds of people that had taken a step forward to accept a huge challenge which, in some cases, could have even cost them their lives, (as it happened to the Apollo I astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee). And I was sad. Where has this spirit gone? Where are the successors of those people? And then I realized that the magic was gone. Bureaucrats ruled the world.
Any large human organization, once it reaches a certain critical size, it takes on a life of its own. I do not know why this happens, neither how it happens, but it’s like this. Saying that it assumes a life of its own, I mean that it starts running like an autonomous organism in which people become less important. This applies to large companies, but also to any other big organization that you could imagine, from the Army, to the public administration or NGO. And it is in that moment, when the dragon appears.
Remember the Chinese proverb:
“Do not despise the snake because it has no teeth, she could grow and become a dragon”
(P.L. “Proverbs for any time” Volume 1)
At that point, the organization absorbs its members and treats people like a consumable element of its own, like the ink for the printers or the paper for the photocopiers. And with this aim it creates rules. Rules should allow the organization autonomous working. If it achieves that rules regulate all aspects of the activity (no matter if it is the behavior or the engineering) any person could perform any job. Everyone is expendable and anyone can be replaced overnight. To make his job he has only to follow the rule.
In simple terms, the aim is that even the dumbest could make clocks.
There are two basic types of standards in engineering, the ones applied “a priori” (prior) and the ones applied “a posteriori” (after). Until recently, almost all rules where of the second type. This means that you make a design and you have to verify that it fulfills certain quality parameters and performances. A typical example could be the rules that refer to the environmental conditions in which the equipment has to work. In these rules, depending on the features of the unit, you have to ensure the perfect operation in a range of temperatures, of load factors and vibrations and a certain supply conditions. You have also to assure the EMI/EMC compatibility with other equipment, its resistance to electric discharges and endless other things. This is very reasonable in deed. Obviously all these requirements will condition your design, but in no case you will be told how to make it.
But for some time some new regulations that apply “a priori” have been published (we will discuss about them in the next time) and these tell you how you have to do everything to be acceptable by the system. And that’s where the problems begin, because these rules directly concern creativity.
Since at heart I am a bit romantic, I like to imagine creativity as one of those Disney princesses, happy and haughty. Apparently fragile, but resolute and strong facing danger and the dragon, even though she knows she cannot beat him.
The design rules are there to try to minimize the errors, detect them and correct them. But the problem is that when an error eludes all control the reaction shouldn’t be to put even more the rules, but apply common sense.
I give you an example: in 1999 the exploration ship Mars Climate Orbiter, a probe launched by NASA, disintegrated in the Martian atmosphere. The most accepted explanation to this is that the Mission control team sent corrections using the imperial units, while the onboard computers interpreted metric units. How is it possible that this eluded any supervision?
The answer is that designing an “idiot proof” system is impossible. It is a chimera.
The solution is to improve the communication between the technicians, deleting bureaucracy and work in small and controllable teams. This does not guarantee success, but reduces the number of blunders. Life is dangerous- you go outside and a tile falling off can hit you, but this is not a reason to stay locked at home all day long.
I have no doubt that the safest aircraft is the one that stays on the drawing board (assuming that we rounded the edges of the paper to avoid getting a paper cut). But this is no relief at all. Aircrafts should fly and be as safe as we can build them and it is our task and obligation to achieve this. And the rules should be there to help us, instead of giving workload to bureaucrats.
This is a sensitive issue and should be considered as a topic for a serious discussion by the authorities involved. It is not about relaxing the rules, but applying them with rational criteria.
But do not expect too much, abandon all hope, the dragon will not allow it, because his own survival depends on it.
A thought:
If you make an “idiot proof” system, nature will create a better idiot.
No comments:
Post a Comment