Re:Spain builds submarine 70 tons too heavy by putting a dec...
by gmrple on Saturday June 08, 2013 @12:30AM
(#5843807)
My electrical engineering professors were constantly trying to ingrain in us the tendency to estimate the solutions to problems long before solving them. Why? because if you know the ball park solution you'll be able to catch gross errors before they happen. Thus you will be less likely to pull a Homer Simpson at the power plant or end up transmitting too much power from your antenna. I'm thankful to be in an industry where catastrophic failure does not have such harmful results.
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Re:Spain builds submarine 70 tons too heavy by putting a dec...
by anonymouz on Saturday June 08, 2013 @02:53AM
(#5844151)
Without more details it's hard to say what exactly went wrong, but it is not at all clear that a ballpark estimate would be of any help here: The submarine weighs 2200 tons, and they think it's 70 tons too heavy.
Re:Spain builds submarine 70 tons too heavy by putting a dec...
by Someone on Saturday June 08, 2013 @10:59AM
(#5845028)
On the one hand, you are right. Preventing things like this (a 3% budget overrun) in large projects is very, very difficult.
On the other hand, if this really is a single off by ten error, this was not a death by a thousand cuts, but someone must have reported that his 80 ton part only weighed 8 tons. That must have been noticeable, even if it got reported for a 'part' where nobody has a natural feel for its weight (for example, what do living quarters, with kitchen, supplies, and water for the showers weigh?)