Don Y snipped-for-privacy@foo.invalid wrote in news:shd3pk$p10$1@dont- email.me:
Oh it gets way worse than that and even deliberately due to the cost of documenting the actual as-built compared to the current docs.
I had this exact problem with a product made by SAIC for the US Navy. (well.. DoD actually). We made these 1250 Volt DC power supplies about a half inch longer than a Virginia Slims cigarette pack. I think they were a pretty stout 8mA unit though. They were and are used in every Geiger counter they use on the Nuke Subs and Nuke powered surface vessels. Anyway, that is what the original approved device spec said. 1250 V @ 8mA and a real clean ripple number too. They were very nice supplies. One day we got notified that the last ten we sent them were all being rejected. It seems they hired a new quality guy there and he was unaware that for well over a decade prior they asked us for and got an HVPS that put out 1500 Volts at 8mA and never put the supply specs back through the costly design change and acceptance process. So the Receiving QA folks there always knew about it and accepted them and they were always incorporated into the equipment right away and nobody noticed till this new QA guy sees the mismatch between the drawing and the supply output itself.
You would not believe how long it took us to ge SAIC to accept them again. I do not know if they actually formally incorporated the change. We simply gave them what they wanted and continued selling them what they wanted (for years) before that debacle.