SMPS Sub-circuit is faulty

[Faringdon]

Hi,
Please,  this post is not political, but I write it as my friend, an  EE, is in much distress…Please  offer your advice?...
My friend is working in a  company doing military work for the UK, and they are based in North of UK. The military work, is mainly a “show off” , token operation, kind of, to “show the main customers that they know their stuff” when it comes to power supplys….then these customers are more likely to place huge, lucrative  orders for the Chinese Power supplies which the company “Middle-man’s” in from China.

This post is not to knock the Chinese, who are absolutely honorable, decent,  and hard working people, indeed, who are in some ways, taken advantage of, in respect of their hard work, if anything…

Anyway, my friend was designing an SMPS for the military operation section. There was a very significant sub-circuit that he was designing…there were multiple ways of doing it, so he was taking time to consider all the different ways. When his boss heard he was held up like this,  the boss then sent him a schem of a presumably_currently_in_service  military power supply…to demo how that sub-circuit had been implemented there. ….
My friend examined the sub-circuit, and noticed that it had  a very serious fault, and that in fact, this sub-circuit would simply not work…..under certain circumstances, this sub-circuit may result in serious product failure.

Of course, My friend cannot be absolutely completely certain that this faulty circuitry actually exists in currently operational miltary power supplies…..but is worried in case it does. He just gets stone-walled whenever he asks about it.

My friend was also involved in other military SMPS designs, for military customers....and was invited to "delay the reporting of faults" in military SMPS circuits being developed...presumably to avoid the military customers from withdrawing finances. I say these were military designs.....my friend of course is too low down to really know...but the customers were indeed actual known military_work companies.

When my friend  made the faults known to his boss...he was told.... "i am not sure at what point we tell them about this....."...and things like....."they are our partners", etc etc.

With another SMPS design for a military customer,  the company had been given a spec for a “115VAC” input SMPS…..the company had failed to deliver this for a year….then my friend was given the design to do, and to do it quickly…..my friend requested permission to speak to the customer about “115VAC input” in the spec…...eg whether it means “100-140VAC”,  “85-130VAC”, or whatever…..
Anyway, on asking the boss to speak to the customer about this…the boss, got up, and stormed out of the room, saying, “we cant ask them questions about the spec now…they gave us that spec over a  year ago…”
…anyway…..this one was averted in some ways, since the operations director later picked up on it, and did indeed arrange for the customer to divulge the full VAC input.

The military developments, may of course,  simply have  been "pure development exercises" only...who knows.

What should he do?.

[MK14]

Hi,
Please,  this post is not political, but I write it as my friend, an  EE, is in much distress…Please  offer your advice?...
My friend is working in a  company doing military work for the UK, and they are based in North of UK. The military work, is mainly a “show off” , token operation, kind of, to “show the main customers that they know their stuff” when it comes to power supplys….then these customers are more likely to place huge, lucrative  orders for the Chinese Power supplies which the company “Middle-man’s” in from China.

This post is not to knock the Chinese, who are absolutely honorable, decent,  and hard working people, indeed, who are in some ways, taken advantage of, in respect of their hard work, if anything…

Anyway, my friend was designing an SMPS for the military operation section. There was a very significant sub-circuit that he was designing…there were multiple ways of doing it, so he was taking time to consider all the different ways. When his boss heard he was held up like this,  the boss then sent him a schem of a presumably_currently_in_service  military power supply…to demo how that sub-circuit had been implemented there. ….
My friend examined the sub-circuit, and noticed that it had  a very serious fault, and that in fact, this sub-circuit would simply not work…..under certain circumstances, this sub-circuit may result in serious product failure.

Of course, My friend cannot be absolutely completely certain that this faulty circuitry actually exists in currently operational miltary power supplies…..but is worried in case it does. He just gets stone-walled whenever he asks about it.

My friend was also involved in other military SMPS designs, for military customers....and was invited to "delay the reporting of faults" in military SMPS circuits being developed...presumably to avoid the military customers from withdrawing finances. I say these were military designs.....my friend of course is too low down to really know...but the customers were indeed actual known military_work companies.

What should he do?.

Quoted, in case they try and hide the evidence of the original post.

[Faringdon]

Thanks, ripping off the military is common...i used to work for a co that audited product designs, to check that military contractors hadnt  overcharged....but its worrying now, specially when we are involved in a war which may very well suck us much further in.

Quoted, in case they try and hide the evidence of the original post.

Thanks,  since you brought this up i feel obliged to  respond to your copy/paste......... so,  i wonder how serious an issue that you think that this is(?), compared to other things that are openly happening...for example, the outsourcing of virtually all SMPS design and manufacture to the Far East, ...this has a massively  deleterious impact on the military capability of the UK's defence industry, but nobody does anything about that.
...so thanks for the copy/paste...but really, how far down the scale_of_danger the situation of the top post is?, in relation to the massive disaster that's already happened on this front....as just described here.

SMPS design and manufacture skills are massively important in sustaining todays, highly electronics based, , military equipment.....and yet we've hived all that skill over to the Far East.

[Psi]

This is why working for the military is problematic, there are so many ethical dilemmas.
Question: Is it more ethical to try and get the fault fixed, or is it more ethical to not fix it.
Answer: It's unknowable, because it's not possible to know who will ultimately end up using the products and on which side of a conflict it will be used, and what the conflict will be about.

There are of course some exceptions.  Military medical tech used to save lives for example. You can obviously be pretty certain that fixing the issue is ethical and not fixing it is unethical. etc..

[ebastler]

The military work, is mainly a “show off” , token operation, kind of, to “show the main customers that they know their stuff” when it comes to power supplys….then these customers are more likely to place huge, lucrative  orders for the Chinese Power supplies which the company “Middle-man’s” in from China.

This post is not to knock the Chinese, who are absolutely honorable, decent,  and hard working people, indeed, who are in some ways, taken advantage of, in respect of their hard work, if anything…

The way I understand your actual question, it has nothing to do at all with that company's China import business. Your question is how your friend should deal with a design flaw he has found in an existing military product of his company, right? And since the company's military products are designed locally, this flaw has nothing to do with the Chinese power supplies they sell to other markets, if I got you right.

If my understanding is correct -- why did you mention the China import side of the business at all? It merely serves as a distraction then. And given how many times you have obsessed over middle-man or storefront businesses reselling Chinese imported power supplies, including schemes to set up your own company along those lines, it undermines credibility of your post.

[Faringdon]

Thanks, i simply wish to releive my friend of his considerable guilt.....and refer him to the 3rd post down above, in order to get him to get it in perspective, which is indeed related, ....for him to view the "bigger picture".

[Gyro]

I'm sorry, I'm still having difficulty with the concept of you having friends working in the industry!

[Simon]

Calling something military grade means nothing, if anything that it won't even meat commercial standards. I remember at my last job being at a show where our a product going to a customer was put on show with a sign on it saying "built to military standards", actual engineers came by and giggled at it, particularly when I could not list these. In military land the customer gets as much as he asks for, no consumer protection, what he does not ask for he does not get.

We supplied equipment that was basically a multiband radio beacon rather than passing the required EMC (sub 20dBµV/m), but the customer had not specified. So when they wanted it to the EMC standard a retrofit kit was considered that would be sold to them. I left before they even got the gear working.

Some specs from military customers are absurd. There was the customer wanting 500G of shock resistance. This is I believe the impact force of a missile, but the missile is much lighter than the vehicle (which is why it travels at speed to give it the energy), so although the missile may be subjected to 500G on impact the effect across the vehicle would not be 500G, we just had to shrug that one off, 300G was the maximum a lab could test to and lets face it, when it takes 50G for humans to undergo "disassembly" I don't think that the equipment that was keeping them alive is of much use anymore.

So it goes both ways, stupid suppliers and stupid customers, I mean has anyone got a tennis racket handle and 90's FM radio aerial to lend me? I'll be back with an order worth millions.

[mendip_discovery]

Well if they are doing stuff for the MoD then I suggest they take the issue to the wReck & Destroy department and they will test to see if it's a real fault. It can easily be explained to a customer that under an internal audit it was spotted there is a potential edge case problem and they investigated it and have issued a fix.

If it's a obvious fault then I wonder how it made it into use.

I suspect they would also not be too approving of the rebranded Chinese units. They usually are very fussy about the traceability of manufacturing. Parts can come from there but they like stuff to be assembled in the UK.

[coppercone2]

i suggest antacids when dealing with this sort of problem. because your probobly gonna get enough bull shit to turn your stomach into a armadillo

most likely someone will present you with a risk matrix drawn on a napkin

[langwadt]

The military work, is mainly a “show off” , token operation, kind of, to “show the main customers that they know their stuff” when it comes to power supplys….then these customers are more likely to place huge, lucrative  orders for the Chinese Power supplies which the company “Middle-man’s” in from China.

This post is not to knock the Chinese, who are absolutely honorable, decent,  and hard working people, indeed, who are in some ways, taken advantage of, in respect of their hard work, if anything…

The way I understand your actual question, it has nothing to do at all with that company's China import business. Your question is how your friend should deal with a design flaw he has found in an existing military product of his company, right? And since the company's military products are designed locally, this flaw has nothing to do with the Chinese power supplies they sell to other markets, if I got you right.

If my understanding is correct -- why did you mention the China import side of the business at all? It merely serves as a distraction then. And given how many times you have obsessed over middle-man or storefront businesses reselling Chinese imported power supplies, including schemes to set up your own company along those lines, it undermines credibility of your post.

sure it isn't just a story made up to use as an excuse to complain about china? ...

[coppercone2]

well it could happen to anyone....

[SiliconWizard]

Just asking for a friend.

[MK14]

this post is not political

Then (bold added by me, in both quotes) ...

the outsourcing of virtually all SMPS design and manufacture to the Far East, ...this has a massively  deleterious impact on the military capability of the UK's defence industry, but nobody does anything about that.
...so thanks for the copy/paste...but really, how far down the scale_of_danger the situation of the top post is?, in relation to the massive disaster that's already happened on this front....as just described here.

SMPS design and manufacture skills are massively important in sustaining todays, highly electronics based, , military equipment.....and yet we've hived all that skill over to the Far East.

[SiliconWizard]

(...)
What should he do?.

Not quite sure exactly what the question entails. But to sum it up, i guess this would be down to some engineer witnessing dubious practices from their employer and wondering what to do about it?

First thing as an engineer is to voice your concerns to your boss. Looks like this part was taken care of. This is usually the only thing you can really do if you want to keep your job.

If your boss doesn't take the actions that would seem appropriate to you, then you have 3 choices: either you forget about it and continue as usual, or you quit and make your concerns public (but you better be convinced this is a very serious concern that could have an impact on public safety, otherwise you're setting yourself up for some beating), or just quit, and shut up.

Regardless of the particular situation, this is actually a relatively "common" place you're going to be in at one point or another in your engineering career. Nobody can decide for you what your ethics are and what you'll have to do in such a case.

[PlainName]

What should he do?

Report the issue to his boss, or however far up the chain he feels comfortable. Make the report via email or other recordable media (for instance, if Whatsap then save the conversation offline). Job done, forget about it until and unless responsible people want more details.

Brownie points for writing an actual report detailing the issue and possible solutions. Won't make any difference but creates a much larger cover for his arse and, of course, there will be a larger record.

[Xena E]

With respect to those who have taken the time to respond to this thread I apologise for my comments, but this is the biggest load of bullshit I've read in a while.

[PlainName]

I fear you haven't had the pleasure of reading treFaringdon's posts for very long, or you'd realise how innocuous this is, relatively. 

[Simon]

With respect to those who have taken the time to respond to this thread I apologise for my comments, but this is the biggest load of bullshit I've read in a while.

Which bit is bullshit? while Farringdon does seem to bring some unique, erm, "perspectives" to the forum I have been told to shut up in the past, the attitude was see no evil, hear no evil speak no evil. And the stuff was literally life support.

[MK14]

My friend examined the sub-circuit, and noticed that it had  a very serious fault, and that in fact, this sub-circuit would simply not work…..under certain circumstances, this sub-circuit may result in serious product failure.

Of course, My friend cannot be absolutely completely certain that this faulty circuitry actually exists in currently operational miltary power supplies…..but is worried in case it does. He just gets stone-walled whenever he asks about it.

What exactly was this serious fault?

If you can't for security/privacy reasons tell us, the exact specifics, can you describe it in general terms?

If it had this serious technical design fault, and it simply would NOT work under any circumstances.

Then how on earth did it get through, both all of your friend's companies testing and validation programmes.  All your friend's customer testing and validation programmes.

Then finally work as the final product, without failing dramatically?

It is all too easy to THINK that a serious design mistake has been spotted, but it is all too easy, to be mistaken.

[Xena E]

With respect to those who have taken the time to respond to this thread I apologise for my comments, but this is the biggest load of bullshit I've read in a while.

Which bit is bullshit? while Farringdon does seem to bring some unique, erm, "perspectives" to the forum I have been told to shut up in the past, the attitude was see no evil, hear no evil speak no evil. And the stuff was literally life support.

It is bullshit because the military do not award design contracts like this without going through what they're getting with a fine tooth comb. Also if it were true, the 'friend' and or "Faringdon" is now in contravention of the official secrets act and will be visited shortly by a very nice man from MI5, (who will call himself "Tom Leonard"), my last company had to do background checks on all its employees as there are ongoing contracts of supply with the admiralty.

That's the see evil part.

If these power supplies are just generic then the MOD will just buy them based on suitability from the same suppliers you or I could, if then they are in some way critical then they will do their own tests to   confirm their suitability. If they are for life critical applications  they won't just buy them without provenance  from some shithead in a company "down the road". Normally I find it best to scroll away but this guy needs help.

Faringdon? Perhaps Walter Mitty would be a better handle.

Now, I'll shut up as suggested.

Regards.

[Simon]

What makes you so sure and no one has specified which countries military we are talking about. If you want to take the UK it's no different to any other contracting out. It also depends on the nature of the equipment. but largely take a commercial item and put it into a military application and it just trebles in value. Electronics these days has come so far that there is not much between military requirements and what automotive use. once you understand that a specification is not about the point a part will just break at or stop working but it is as far as the manufacturer is willing to test you realize that it's not as super duper as "uh, made for da military". Testing to -40C is a lot cheaper than testing to -55C which is not as cold as what is often required, if you take specs so literally you won't actually be able to design anything unless you buy a huge batch of everything down to the last resistor and test a few, then know what you have is good. Tendering to the military is as competitive as any commercial tendering. There will also be long chains of supply, I remember picking up the phone to a random call and finding myself briefly involved in a querry over mercury content in the equipment. We were buying the equipment from a supplier, not making it and the customer may have been supplying it to another sourcing contractor.

The poor bastard that has to use the kit is not the one several levels up that paid for it and that deals with the suppliers, so unless it's really a problem, nothing happens.

The cost of military gear in my opinion is partly because the money is there and it is such a huge beast that controlling it down to that £20 lightbulb that was actually worth 20p is hard.

[AVGresponding]

With respect to those who have taken the time to respond to this thread I apologise for my comments, but this is the biggest load of bullshit I've read in a while.

Which bit is bullshit? while Farringdon does seem to bring some unique, erm, "perspectives" to the forum I have been told to shut up in the past, the attitude was see no evil, hear no evil speak no evil. And the stuff was literally life support.

It is bullshit because the military do not award design contracts like this without going through what they're getting with a fine tooth comb. Also if it were true, the 'friend' and or "Faringdon" is now in contravention of the official secrets act and will be visited shortly by a very nice man from MI5, (who will call himself "Tom Leonard"), my last company had to do background checks on all its employees as there are ongoing contracts of supply with the admiralty.

That's the see evil part.

If these power supplies are just generic then the MOD will just buy them based on suitability from the same suppliers you or I could, if then they are in some way critical then they will do their own tests to   confirm their suitability. If they are for life critical applications  they won't just buy them without provenance  from some shithead in a company "down the road". Normally I find it best to scroll away but this guy needs help.

Faringdon? Perhaps Walter Mitty would be a better handle.

Now, I'll shut up as suggested.

Regards.

In an ideal world you might be correct. However we do not live in such a place, and these kinds of things do happen, in the UK military and in that of other countries.

Please note however that I am not defending the OP in any way; I find them abrasive and borderline offensive, and the "asking for a friend" aspect of this thread is ridiculously transparent.

[Simon]

In an ideal world you might be correct. However we do not live in such a place, and these kinds of things do happen, in the UK military and in that of other countries.

Please note however that I am not defending the OP in any way; I find them abrasive and borderline offensive, and the "asking for a friend" aspect of this thread is ridiculously transparent.

[coppercone2]

they do have a fine tooth comb, you know what it combs, the cost spread sheet

your post must have come through the looking glass, where congress is not involved with the MIC.

We need to confirm, what color is the sky on your earth? I suspect its silver green.

The relationship here is something like the gardeners (congress equipped with chain saws) vs those vines from Jumanji (the military).