-
#880 by Jim on 28 Mar, 2007 18:10
-
Quote
Propforce - 28/3/2007 1:24 AM
QuoteJim - 26/3/2007 7:29 AM
The formation of ULA is very personal to me as it affected my wife, who was legacy McDonnell-Douglas and now has gone through another change (reduction) in benefits.
Oh geez Jim, let me wipe that little tears off my eyes... NOT !!!
Now imagine if your wife face a choice of moving to another state in order to keep her job WITH a reduced benefit and whether YOU keep your job in Florida and live a thousand mile apart from your wife, or QUIT your job to go with her... Now welcome to our dilema. Walk a mile in our shoes.
I was at a conference a month ago and got to talk to a few Lockheed ULA engineers. NONE, no one, nada, was happy about being "forced" to go into the ULA but at least they don't have to force the wife to quit her job and relocate.
I have walked a mile and more. Don't preach to me about job moves, you still have a choice, I was in the Air Force before I was with Boeing and NASA. -
#881 by bombay on 30 Mar, 2007 02:55
-
"I don't know enough about each shop to talk about the techs - good workmanship on both sides. I can only hope enough tribal knowledge moves to Decatur."
I've pondered the above partial quote by Antares about retention of tribal knowledge in Decatur. I've concluded that the ULA has made a decision that will take years, at great expense and risk, to overcome.
What is tribal knowledge? In the manufacturing world it's knowing what it takes to actually build a quality product that's not covered on a blue print, CAD model, planning instructions, or any other form of documentation. It's knowledge gained through years of experience of trial and error.
In the case of Centaur where the entire rocket is built in house from pulling raw material to completion, what can Decatur personnel provide to build a Centaur should, as anticipated, the critical Centaur production engineers and mechanics, those with all of the tribal knowledge refuse to go to Decatur? Who else knows how to build a thin guage stainless balloon without crumpling the thing up like a prune?
Was there even one iota of thought that went into the decision to move all production to Decatur? -
#882 by Dexter on 30 Mar, 2007 05:22
-
Quote
Jim - 28/3/2007 1:10 PM
QuotePropforce - 28/3/2007 1:24 AM
QuoteJim - 26/3/2007 7:29 AM
The formation of ULA is very personal to me as it affected my wife, who was legacy McDonnell-Douglas and now has gone through another change (reduction) in benefits.
Oh geez Jim, let me wipe that little tears off my eyes... NOT !!!
Now imagine if your wife face a choice of moving to another state in order to keep her job WITH a reduced benefit and whether YOU keep your job in Florida and live a thousand mile apart from your wife, or QUIT your job to go with her... Now welcome to our dilema. Walk a mile in our shoes.
I was at a conference a month ago and got to talk to a few Lockheed ULA engineers. NONE, no one, nada, was happy about being "forced" to go into the ULA but at least they don't have to force the wife to quit her job and relocate.
I have walked a mile and more. Don't preach to me about job moves, you still have a choice, I was in the Air Force before I was with Boeing and NASA.
I would suppose that you knew that when you joined the USAF that there would be job moves.
In contrast, Propforce has painted a situation where someone in there 40s working for an aerospace company is looking for stability, not adventure. With kids and a spouse who may also have a career the decision is not as easy as receiving orders from your CO.
The key point in all of this is that the employees do have a choice and they seem to be resolutely excersizing their choice in not moving.
I find it interesting that noone has denied or refuted the information that only 10% of the "worker-bees" have more than two years of experience that have chosen to relocate.
The key issue here is how does that choice affect our ability to launch national security payloads?
-
#883 by Jim on 30 Mar, 2007 11:49
-
Quote
Dexter - 30/3/2007 1:22 AM
I would suppose that you knew that when you joined the USAF that there would be job moves.
In contrast, Propforce has painted a situation where someone in there 40s working for an aerospace company is looking for stability, not adventure. With kids and a spouse who may also have a career the decision is not as easy as receiving orders from your CO.
I was an engineer in the Air Force with kids and spouse. Adventure doesn't apply to engineering -
#884 by Jim on 30 Mar, 2007 11:58
-
Quote
Dexter - 30/3/2007 1:22 AM
I find it interesting that noone has denied or refuted the information that only 10% of the "worker-bees" have more than two years of experience that have chosen to relocate.
Now you are just assuming all the bad is real and not even looking at it from a balance point of view
Just numerically, I doubt it. The freeze was on for more than a years. Also people coming into the program weren't that many. If 43% of all the workers chose to move and since most have more than 2 years, the 10% can't be true -
#885 by Dexter on 30 Mar, 2007 13:48
-
Quote
Jim - 30/3/2007 6:58 AM
QuoteDexter - 30/3/2007 1:22 AM
I find it interesting that noone has denied or refuted the information that only 10% of the "worker-bees" have more than two years of experience that have chosen to relocate.
Now you are just assuming all the bad is real and not even looking at it from a balance point of view
Just numerically, I doubt it. The freeze was on for more than a years. Also people coming into the program weren't that many. If 43% of all the workers chose to move and since most have more than 2 years, the 10% can't be true
I am referring to skywalker's post from last week who stated that it was 43% total but that included all management and supervision.
At the working level, the total was 20% acceptance with half being new hires with less than two years experience.
That leads me to conclude that only 10% of the working people have more than two years experience.
Another poster here did state that the 43% did include people who were recently hired with the condition that they were relocating to Denver.
It was also pointed out by Proforce in December that the incentives for top mangement was higher than for the worker bees to relocate.
This would support the stratification of acceptance with the top levels seeing more acceptance and the lower levels seeing less acceptance.
I don't think the tribal knowledge and technical expertise resides in the top layers of management.
-
#886 by Gus on 31 Mar, 2007 04:37
-
Quote
bombay - 29/3/2007 7:55 PM
"I don't know enough about each shop to talk about the techs - good workmanship on both sides. I can only hope enough tribal knowledge moves to Decatur."
I've pondered the above partial quote by Antares about retention of tribal knowledge in Decatur. I've concluded that the ULA has made a decision that will take years, at great expense and risk, to overcome.
What is tribal knowledge? In the manufacturing world it's knowing what it takes to actually build a quality product that's not covered on a blue print, CAD model, planning instructions, or any other form of documentation. It's knowledge gained through years of experience of trial and error.
In the case of Centaur where the entire rocket is built in house from pulling raw material to completion, what can Decatur personnel provide to build a Centaur should, as anticipated, the critical Centaur production engineers and mechanics, those with all of the tribal knowledge refuse to go to Decatur? Who else knows how to build a thin guage stainless balloon without crumpling the thing up like a prune?
Was there even one iota of thought that went into the decision to move all production to Decatur?
This is a very good point because in all of the ULA factories, the metal of choice is Aluminum except in San Diego where it is stainless steel. Here, in Denver and Harlingen as well, there is more reliance on machined aluminum isogrid panels bought from suppliers with less internal fabrication and more assembly of bolted on components. In San Diego, the process starts out with raw material and fabricates the balloon tank with resistance welding and is extremely labor intensive. A lack of tribal knowledge transfer from there would put us in deep do-do. -
#887 by Dexter on 31 Mar, 2007 04:57
-
Quote
Gus - 30/3/2007 11:37 PM
Quotebombay - 29/3/2007 7:55 PM
"I don't know enough about each shop to talk about the techs - good workmanship on both sides. I can only hope enough tribal knowledge moves to Decatur."
I've pondered the above partial quote by Antares about retention of tribal knowledge in Decatur. I've concluded that the ULA has made a decision that will take years, at great expense and risk, to overcome.
What is tribal knowledge? In the manufacturing world it's knowing what it takes to actually build a quality product that's not covered on a blue print, CAD model, planning instructions, or any other form of documentation. It's knowledge gained through years of experience of trial and error.
In the case of Centaur where the entire rocket is built in house from pulling raw material to completion, what can Decatur personnel provide to build a Centaur should, as anticipated, the critical Centaur production engineers and mechanics, those with all of the tribal knowledge refuse to go to Decatur? Who else knows how to build a thin guage stainless balloon without crumpling the thing up like a prune?
Was there even one iota of thought that went into the decision to move all production to Decatur?
This is a very good point because in all of the ULA factories, the metal of choice is Aluminum except in San Diego where it is stainless steel. Here, in Denver and Harlingen as well, there is more reliance on machined aluminum isogrid panels bought from suppliers with less internal fabrication and more assembly of bolted on components. In San Diego, the process starts out with raw material and fabricates the balloon tank with resistance welding and is extremely labor intensive. A lack of tribal knowledge transfer from there would put us in deep do-do.
So what happens when only 10% relocate like the HB acceptance? -
#888 by WHAP on 31 Mar, 2007 13:11
-
Quote
Dexter - 30/3/2007 7:48 AM
I am referring to skywalker's post from last week who stated that it was 43% total but that included all management and supervision.
At the working level, the total was 20% acceptance with half being new hires with less than two years experience.
That leads me to conclude that only 10% of the working people have more than two years experience.
Another poster here did state that the 43% did include people who were recently hired with the condition that they were relocating to Denver.
It was also pointed out by Proforce in December that the incentives for top mangement was higher than for the worker bees to relocate.
This would support the stratification of acceptance with the top levels seeing more acceptance and the lower levels seeing less acceptance.
I don't think the tribal knowledge and technical expertise resides in the top layers of management.
The number of management and supervision personnel are still small compared to the number of "working people". The working level acceptance rate is closer to 43% than 20%. I don't know how many of those are new hires, but I think the 10% number is low (that is, more than 10% of the working people have more than 2 yrs experience). Many of the mid-level supervisors (probably not as highly incentivized as the top mgt, but more so than the lowest level) do have tribal knowledge and technical expertise.
I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture. The numbers are still relatively low, but that has to be expected given the different factors the HB folks need to weigh (housing, family, current job market, CO vs. CA climate, etc.). -
#889 by Gov't Seagull on 31 Mar, 2007 22:59
-
Based on what I've seen, a solid 70-80% of the HB senior managers are moving, and about half of the worker bees are. The ones who aren't moving are generally the most experienced. Considering the deficiencies in the "Delta way", it's probably better that way.
When ULA spins up in Denver, things are going to be done the Atlas way. The younger people from HB will adapt, and the ex-HB managers will probably bail. -
#890 by Dexter on 01 Apr, 2007 05:12
-
Quote
Gov't Seagull - 31/3/2007 5:59 PM
Based on what I've seen, a solid 70-80% of the HB senior managers are moving, and about half of the worker bees are. The ones who aren't moving are generally the most experienced. Considering the deficiencies in the "Delta way", it's probably better that way.
When ULA spins up in Denver, things are going to be done the Atlas way. The younger people from HB will adapt, and the ex-HB managers will probably bail.If the Delta way is so deficient, why was it not allowed to die out instead of forming ULA?
If the Ex HB managers will probably just bail, why even offer them incentives to stay?
If the Delta way is so bad, why risk the Atlas manufacturing to a plant that only knows the Delta way?
If the experienced Delta worker-bees don't relocate, who will teach the younger people?
There is a great disparity in the numbers on relocation acceptance. Who has the truth?
-
#891 by WHAP on 01 Apr, 2007 13:51
-
I don't see a great disparity in the relocation numbers. My numbers are close to Gov't Seagull's. The 43% is pretty consistent as well. The only number I don't think people have a real handle on is the % of people in the non-mgt ranks who have more than 2 years experience. It's not that people aren't telling the "truth", that number may just not be floating around ready to be posted on the Internet.
I guess I'd like to understand the "deficiencies" as well. Care to elaborate, Dexter? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your statement, just looking for details. -
#892 by Gov't Seagull on 01 Apr, 2007 14:22
-
Quote
Dexter - 1/4/2007 1:12 AM
If the Delta way is so deficient, why was it not allowed to die out instead of forming ULA?
If the Ex HB managers will probably just bail, why even offer them incentives to stay?
If the Delta way is so bad, why risk the Atlas manufacturing to a plant that only knows the Delta way?
If the experienced Delta worker-bees don't relocate, who will teach the younger people?
There is a great disparity in the numbers on relocation acceptance. Who has the truth?
Let me rephrase - like most space launch engineering operations, Delta is far above average compared to the broad spectrum of engineering in general. But compared to Atlas, the Delta engineering operation is deficient. Their processes are less rigorous, they have a commercial mindset, and they are stuck with a bunch of composite primary structure that requires huge chunks of their engineering resources. And actually, whether Delta is better or worse than Atlas, the physical fact of ULA engineering being at Waterton and the comparative numbers of Atlas vs. Delta engineers means Atlas will win out, I think. But hey, GD ended up dominating Martin, so maybe it won't happen.
I don't know all the factors ULA considered in deciding who to move where, who to try to hang on to, etc., so I can't speak for them. My guess is that the ex-HB people were perceived as being better than trying to start from scratch with fresh-outs. HB tends to resist new methods and ideas until there is no alternative. We're talking data inputs on 40-year-old punched-card forms because "that's the way we've always done it." The guy who up to now has refused to get rid of the punch-card forms is the guy who's going to quit when it becomes clear that he'll have to adapt to Atlas methods.
Why move manufacturing to Decatur? Good question. Probably someone high up saw that Decatur was a brand new factory with excess capacity and that was that.
Atlas will teach the young Delta guys. -
#893 by Gov't Seagull on 01 Apr, 2007 14:26
-
Quote
WHAP - 1/4/2007 9:51 AM
The only number I don't think people have a real handle on is the % of people in the non-mgt ranks who have more than 2 years experience.
Very few HB people in a position of any kind of responsibility have less than 5 years' experience. Almost all of them were around during Delta IV development. A lot of those guys will go, and will adapt. It's the over-40s that are going to stay in HB or bail. -
#894 by Dexter on 01 Apr, 2007 15:11
-
Quote
Gov't Seagull - 1/4/2007 9:26 AM
QuoteWHAP - 1/4/2007 9:51 AM
The only number I don't think people have a real handle on is the % of people in the non-mgt ranks who have more than 2 years experience.
Very few HB people in a position of any kind of responsibility have less than 5 years' experience. Almost all of them were around during Delta IV development. A lot of those guys will go, and will adapt. It's the over-40s that are going to stay in HB or bail.I see that as a problem based on the Titan failures of the 90's. You think this will solve some problems on Delta if I understand you correctly.
Consider this, when the Atlas folks are training the inexperienced Delta folks the "Atlas way", who will be minding Atlas?
I see a dilution of "Atlas way" experience with the scenario you paint..
-
#895 by Dexter on 02 Apr, 2007 04:06
-
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5562832
350 out of 900 - 38% from HB
24 out of 100 from Denver to Decatur. 24% -
#896 by WHAP on 02 Apr, 2007 14:07
-
Quote
Dexter - 1/4/2007 10:06 PM
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5562832
350 out of 900 - 38% from HB
24 out of 100 from Denver to Decatur. 24%
The numbers for the HB move are consistent (maybe a little low - probably some rounding going on). BTW, those are NOT "working level" folks in that article.
Where did the 24 of 100 come from? I didn't think any offers had been made for moves to Decatur yet. -
#897 by ULAwantabe on 02 Apr, 2007 23:13
-
I am curious how many of the HB folks who said that they will move actually plan to follow through?
One measure of this commitment is if they actually seem energized to sell their homes. Would any insider be willing to identify to us if option A or option B below seems more prevalent to describe the people who said that they would move:
Option A) All excited about moving, already put house up for sale, or gave notice if renting, have gone on house hunting trips already to Colorado, and showing true excitement about moving.
Option B) Seem worn out from all the stress of a move, showing no enthusiasm at work about the future, spending minimal hours at work, seem to be aggressively interviewing elsewhere, show no interest in selling their home.
Just curious because I went through all this at GD. A lot of folks who said they were going to make the move aggressively interviewed during this period of time. I was up front with my management since my father had just died, and no way was I going to leave my family. But others were not so honest to management. And as an insider you could tell who these people were.
-
#898 by skywalker on 03 Apr, 2007 00:43
-
Quote
WHAP - 31/3/2007 8:11 AM
QuoteDexter - 30/3/2007 7:48 AM
I am referring to skywalker's post from last week who stated that it was 43% total but that included all management and supervision.
At the working level, the total was 20% acceptance with half being new hires with less than two years experience.
That leads me to conclude that only 10% of the working people have more than two years experience.
Another poster here did state that the 43% did include people who were recently hired with the condition that they were relocating to Denver.
It was also pointed out by Proforce in December that the incentives for top mangement was higher than for the worker bees to relocate.
This would support the stratification of acceptance with the top levels seeing more acceptance and the lower levels seeing less acceptance.
I don't think the tribal knowledge and technical expertise resides in the top layers of management.
The number of management and supervision personnel are still small compared to the number of "working people". The working level acceptance rate is closer to 43% than 20%. I don't know how many of those are new hires, but I think the 10% number is low (that is, more than 10% of the working people have more than 2 yrs experience). Many of the mid-level supervisors (probably not as highly incentivized as the top mgt, but more so than the lowest level) do have tribal knowledge and technical expertise.
I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture. The numbers are still relatively low, but that has to be expected given the different factors the HB folks need to weigh (housing, family, current job market, CO vs. CA climate, etc.).QuoteGov't Seagull - 31/3/2007 5:59 PM
Based on what I've seen, a solid 70-80% of the HB senior managers are moving, and about half of the worker bees are. The ones who aren't moving are generally the most experienced. Considering the deficiencies in the "Delta way", it's probably better that way.
When ULA spins up in Denver, things are going to be done the Atlas way. The younger people from HB will adapt, and the ex-HB managers will probably bail.QuoteDexter - 1/4/2007 11:06 PM
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_5562832
350 out of 900 - 38% from HB
24 out of 100 from Denver to Decatur. 24%
I know that there were 933 HB people on Day 1 (I have seen the list that was on the ULA home page).
Assume 40% Managers (373) and 60% Worker-bees (560)
Total movers 401 = 43%
20% of the Worker-bees 112 move (56 with less than 2yrs)
this leaves 289 or 77% of Management move or
Assume 30% Managers (280) and 70% Worker-bees (653)
20% of the Worker-bees 131 move (65 with less than 2ys)
this leaves 219 or 78% of Management move
Yes is is manipulation of the numbers but it falls in line with Gov't Seagull's 70-80% stated above. In other words my initial 20% worke-bees is not out of line. There is another quote from a different thread -
#899 by bombay on 03 Apr, 2007 00:55
-
Quote
Dexter - 30/3/2007 11:57 PM
You could argue that Atlas engineering personnel could absorb Delta engineering deficiencies in personnel based on the fact that common rules/laws of engineering will apply to either rocket.QuoteGus - 30/3/2007 11:37 PM
Quotebombay - 29/3/2007 7:55 PM
"I don't know enough about each shop to talk about the techs - good workmanship on both sides. I can only hope enough tribal knowledge moves to Decatur."
I've pondered the above partial quote by Antares about retention of tribal knowledge in Decatur. I've concluded that the ULA has made a decision that will take years, at great expense and risk, to overcome.
What is tribal knowledge? In the manufacturing world it's knowing what it takes to actually build a quality product that's not covered on a blue print, CAD model, planning instructions, or any other form of documentation. It's knowledge gained through years of experience of trial and error.
In the case of Centaur where the entire rocket is built in house from pulling raw material to completion, what can Decatur personnel provide to build a Centaur should, as anticipated, the critical Centaur production engineers and mechanics, those with all of the tribal knowledge refuse to go to Decatur? Who else knows how to build a thin guage stainless balloon without crumpling the thing up like a prune?
Was there even one iota of thought that went into the decision to move all production to Decatur?
This is a very good point because in all of the ULA factories, the metal of choice is Aluminum except in San Diego where it is stainless steel. Here, in Denver and Harlingen as well, there is more reliance on machined aluminum isogrid panels bought from suppliers with less internal fabrication and more assembly of bolted on components. In San Diego, the process starts out with raw material and fabricates the balloon tank with resistance welding and is extremely labor intensive. A lack of tribal knowledge transfer from there would put us in deep do-do.
So what happens when only 10% relocate like the HB acceptance?
The same can't be said for Centaur manufacturing. There's nothing in common between Centaur manufacturing and Atlas/Delta booster or Delta upperstage, absolutely nothing! There's no answer to what the ULA will do if the right people don't follow Centaur to Decatur.
