Boeing, an American multinational aerospace company based in Chicago has reportedly been accused of outsourcing software development to low paid sub-contractors, making as less as $9 per hour from countries lacking aerospace background — such as India.
The announcement comes along the heels of the Max Software plagued by technical issues that will keep the aircrafts grounded for months especially after discovering that Boeing was replacing experienced engineers with low paid contractors to cut costs.
According to Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer, most of the programmers were employed by third party software developers like HCL technologies and Cyient. The coders from HCL designed to suit the specifications that were set by Boeing, but the work was questionable because it was less efficient as compared to Boeing engineers, he further claimed.
Reportedly, in January 2017 SpiceJet Ltd., an Indian airline gave Boeing a project valued at $22 billion, pertaining to building 100 737 — max jets, marking Boeing’s largest ever order received from an Indian airline. The company has apparently bagged several other orders from Indian military and commercial aircrafts.
In an official statement, the company claims that they do not rely on engineers from Cyient and HCL for the€œManeuvering Characteristics Augmentation System€ that has been linked to the Ethiopian air crash in March and the Lion air disaster in April. The Chicago based giant ensures that the motto of the company is to provide safe and high-quality products that comply with the required guidelines.
HCL — Indian based IT company further adds stating that the firm does not have any association with the ongoing 737 Max battle. HCL has reportedly had a strong and long-standing relationship with Boeing.
For the record, Boeing began working on the Max Software 8 years ago and the engineers that worked on it complained of work pressure from their managers and were told to limit any changes demanding extra time and cost.
Source Credits: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/boeing-s-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers
