I finally toured the C-130 depot at Warner Robins last month and noticed something odd about the wiring harness repair station

I had a chance to visit the Robins AFB depot back in October through a family connection. Everyone there talks about how great the new automated wire testing equipment is, but I was more interested in the old manual repair bench tucked in the corner. The technician there was stripping and splicing wires by hand for a harness that the automated line supposedly already "fixed" two weeks ago. He told me they find about 1 out of 20 connections from the automated system are bad and need rework. I asked three different guys about it and they all shrugged it off like it was normal. Seems to me like the money spent on that fancy tester might have been better used training more people on the manual methods. Has anyone else seen big gaps like this between what the tech reps promise and what actually works on the floor?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayden58714h ago

Bet @alices16 I'd trust a human splicing wires with duct tape over some robot that cant even hit 95% right haha.

alices1617h ago

Look it's not like i'm defending the contractor or anything lol but is 1 out of 20 really that huge of a deal? That's a 95% pass rate which is pretty solid for a first pass on complex military wiring. Plus the automated stuff catches the big obvious problems way faster than a human can. The real issue is probably just them not giving the techs enough time to do a thorough manual check before it ships out. If the manual guys are catching it before the harness goes on a plane, then the system is working exactly as designed.