Read this wild ProPublica story about a General Dynamics factory in Mesquite.
ProPublica’s story about a General Dynamics artillery factory in Mesquite that won a no-bid contract to make artillery shells for Ukraine begins, “A robot was on fire. Again.” It details how the company allegedly blew through eight deadlines and never produced a single usable shell, using highly-touted innovative new machinery imported from Turkey. It includes this passage:
“Instead of producing shells in an efficient and streamlined fashion, the pricey machines kept failing in bizarre ways. The robot arms would swing out of control, smashing into carefully calibrated equipment, and sometimes they would unexpectedly drop hunks of steel 5 feet down to the floor. The factory’s signature device, meant to precisely stretch the steel for the artillery shells, instead often cracked it beyond repair. Then there were the giant press machines, which required regular pounding with a sledgehammer to function properly but still botched the shaping of nearly every shell. ‘We really didn’t have any standardized practice,’ said Quantel White, a former employee. ‘It was just a bunch of guys taking turns going at the machine with a sledgehammer every night.’”…