...back in May.
The issue surfaced in May when Lewis Machining received a shipment of titanium that lacked complete documentation. The metal failed quality tests ordered by Lewis, which then triggered a round of testing from Pratt.
The court documents claim that A&P Alloys lied numerous times about the origins of the metal and, in some cases, told intermediate suppliers to withhold information from Pratt & Whitney.
Pressure built at Pratt & Whitney and appeared to spill out publicly days after the visit, when the company's head of engineering and operations, Danny Di Perna, spoke to businesses at an industry event, visibly upset about some supplier issue.
"There are some folks out here … that do bad things with material," Di Perna said on May 30, not specifically citing the titanium problem but explaining that he had been dealing with an issue since 7:30 the night before. "I'm very upset about it. … But I'm telling you, integrity."
Although he cited no specifics of the issue, he constantly returned to supplier honesty and quality. "The supply chain I don't think is ready" for higher production, he said. "We are not going to put up with nonperformance anymore."
The federal court case offers a unique glimpse into how Pratt & Whitney maintains quality and compliance among its field of suppliers for hundreds of thousands of parts. With steep production increases on the horizon, the incident shows just how much the company relies on the honesty of its suppliers and redundant testing measures to keep the operation on track.
On Friday, the same day that the lawsuit was filed, news services reported that parts from the questionable titanium had made it into more than 140 delivered aircraft engines. Pratt & Whitney is asking the court to rule against A&P Alloys for fraud, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract, and to grant Pratt & Whitney an amount to be determined at trial.
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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
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