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Boeing overcharged the U.S. Air Force 8,000% above market for soap dispensers

(www.reuters.com)
152 points lr0 | 1 comments | 21 Nov 24 04:19 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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cjensen ◴[21 Nov 24 06:40 UTC] No.42201750[source]▶
The US has 222 C-17 Aircraft. A single C-17 costs over $300 million.

If you ask Boeing for soap dispenser parts for these, what should they cost? Boeing charged $149,072 for the dispensers. That's $671 per plane. Is that too much?

If you had to make these dispensers, make sure they conform to rules for aircraft parts and Air Force parts, provide formal responses to bids, etc., how much could you make them for?

It seems high to me. The article says 8000%, which is less than $10 per plane. So while it seems high, it's definitely not 8000% high.

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edm0nd ◴[21 Nov 24 07:01 UTC] No.42201837[source]▶
What about designing the plane to use a common soap dispenser that doesnt cost $150k?

Why not just use existing solutions like a soap dispenser that is found on common commercial passenger planes that Boeing already has and makes?

There is no world where a simple soap dispenser is $150k.

They seemingly design them like this so they can bilk the US government aka tax payers with these absurd prices for simple objects.

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1. ars ◴[21 Nov 24 07:36 UTC] No.42201993[source]▶
> What about designing the plane to use a common soap dispenser that doesnt cost $150k?

Which one? Whichever you pick you need to stock that exact same one for the next 50 to 100 years. By the time you finish exactly defining it, you are back where you started.

(Also it's not 150k each - that's the price for the entire fleet.)