OM wrote:
On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:21:56 -0500, "Jorge R. Frank"
wrote:

Alan Erskine wrote:
No wonder the Shuttle is so pharking expensive to operate!
Welcome to the post-CAIB "need more government inspectors" world.

...Jorge, this might be the one time I've ever disagreed with you, but
I'd rather see more inspectors actually doing the job properly than
something go wrong because a step was missed.

On the other hand, we *did* have that issue last mission where the
White Room had a panel that wasn't lashed down properly prior to arm
swingback, and there were several inspectors then as well...

And there you have it. Are additional inspectors useful or are they not?
Your gut says "yes" but your data says "no." That squares very well with
my experience as well. We had some products that required four
signatures, but in all my years I never saw anybody past the second ever
catch a technical error, just editorial suggestions.

A "second set of eyes" is a good thing in general, both in the cockpit
and on the ground. But the added value of additional sets of eyes beyond
the second asymptotically (and rapidly) approaches zero. That is because
adding signatures divides accountability.

Stroustrup once wrote, "An organization that treats its programmers as
morons will soon have programmers capable of being morons only." That
applies to engineers and technicians as well.