On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:42:42 -0700, William Black
wrote:


That'll change. As it is, when Rockwell-Garmin sold em modern GPS
technology back during the Clinton Administration and Boeing did the
same
with the ring laser gyro autopilot during the same time frame, that made
me sick too. It buys the Chinese time to get good at things, while
extending the usefulness of weapons that might not otherwise be up to
scratch. Both of those avionics systems went into the Qing-5, a 1958
design for a tactical nuclear strike fighter that was supposed to be
able
to do what the early model F-105s could. That plane was utterly obsolete
until we upgraded their NAV/ATTACK systems for them.

It's not the technologies.

They don't actually matter.

They do. At least for guys like me who used to be on the sharp end of
things, and that's a fact.


It's the project management techniques that allow you to change
direction in
a reasonable time frame.

They're learning. The Japanese didn't know either until they started
listening to Deming back in the late forties. And that milleau produced
guys like Akio Morita, who were truly formidible. Care to imagine Morita
managing a defense firm the way that he did Sony?

The Chinese used to send their guys to school here as science and
engineering guys. Now they're studying business courses. Twenty years ago,
you couldn't find one of those guys who understood how to do a business
case, but now, they're picking it right up.


These are skills is very short supply just about everywhere, and look
like
remaining so for the next decade or so.

Depends. They're turning out some great engineers and some of them will
show talent just like Kelly Johnson and Ed Heinemann did. You just watch
the successful ones and promote em when they're right, and keep em in
competition. My guess is that Shenyang and Chengdu have guys who can
manage at least as well as Ben Rich did. It's just a matter of letting em
develop, and the Chinese seem to be doing that.


Indian project managers leave India after graduation in droves, mainly
to
work in the USA.

I don't blame em. I used to know this one Indian girl who was a fairly
good engineer. Her theory is that the country turns out so many of them,
because going to college is the only way that they can get away from their
parents. It's something to consider.


Indian companies hire US companies to do this sort of work for them
because
they can't recruit any people locally. This leads to the rather odd
situation where Indian engineers leave India for a few months and then
return, but working for a foreign company at foreign wages.

Yup.

China will get the same problem.

I'm not so sure. The Chinese learn fast and Ford and GM used to have
in-house management training programs that were pretty good.




--
"Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt, USN.