Originally Posted by
Deeranged
I'll give you a story about turbines.
It's much cheaper to go abroad than it is to manufacture here in the UK, always will be. UK companies are required to achieve certain levels of quality, health, safety and environmental management and can't get away with using unskilled and poorly paid workers to complete skilled work the way companies in certain overseas areas can and do. They also can't treat employees like disposable commodities the way companies in certain areas overseas can and do. However as we all know, you get what you pay for.
There was a major contract issued to a company in the middle east for wind turbine jackets which were manufactured; I believe on time but not sure. Customer is the Scottish government.
On release inspection it was found that the paint scheme wasn't adequate and chunks of paint were falling from them - these things are about 200m high and I'm not sure of the coating thickness but imagine a 1/2 cm thick lump of dry paint possibly 6 inches in diameter falling from that height, could easily kill someone and the environmental considerations are just as significant.
In order to get the coating correctly applied the jackets have been shipped to a yard in Scotland where there is currently a team of UK based operators removing the original coating and reapplying the correct coating. I don't have details of how much it cost however I'm led to believe that the cost incurred of reworking these jackets has pushed the final order cost well over what the cost would have been had the full job been completed right first time at the Scottish yard that's repairing them.
Some great decision making right there.