The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results - aka Fraud

Q

qualitygal

#21
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

I was asked once to "doctor" a collective bargaining agreement between my company and the bricklayers union in Frackville PA. I was terminated because I wouldn't have any part of it (of course that wasn't what they put on my termination papers). The GM followed through and signed his name to it. About 6 months later, him and everyone at that company involved in the negotiations was indicted. He went to prison because he was the only one who had the nerve to put his name on the paperwork.

By the way, I was an Internal Financial Auditor for Enron back when they were still HNG Internorth and believe me there was a lot of stuff .....:cool:


Qualitygal
 
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M

mlthompson

#22
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

I know for me I will never be a Quality Manager in the aerospace industry. All the examples I sited were aerospace companies. The liability, and the guilt, that would come back on me if a plane fell out of the sky would be more than I could handle.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#23
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

As much as we would all like to believe that the subject of ethics in business is circumscribed by bright lines, the truth is otherwise, I'm afraid. We all have to make decisions in difficult situations sometimes, and it's not always helpful to believe that telling the truth is always the best policy, or that businesses that have institutionalized prevarication are doomed because of it. While it's very true that any edifice built on a foundation of dishonesty is probably not going to survive when the going gets tough, it's also true that in some businesses lying is a way of life, and always has been. Most manufacturing job shops will tell lies in order to get your business, and then when they have it, will lie in order keep it. If you know this, you can deal with it. Lenny Bruce suggested that the key is consistency and said that no one was ever eaten by a cannibal who had claimed to be a vegetarian.

If you feel that being untruthful has the potential to hurt someone, or otherwise result in undesireable consequences, either for you or someone else, then the decision might be easy. But if you're dealing with a customer whose representative is a robotic dolt and believes that you must supply a corrective action report for a nonconformance that most reasonably intelligent dogs would recognize as an insignificant outlier, giving the customer what he wants might reasonably involve making stuff up.
I don't quite agree on the pervasiveness of outright lying by job shops as much as I agree there are a lot of ignorant folks running and working in job shops who have no clue as to the shop's REAL capability or capacity. For the most part, these are well meaning folks who are deluding themselves even more than their customers about what they can or cannot perform adequately.

I have listened to "old timers" brag how they could hold plus or minus one ten thousandth of a inch tolerance on their B&S lathe. The reality is that NO Brownie could have achieved that tolerance except by pure fluke on one or two pieces.

Maybe some of what Jim labels as "lies" is just "wishful thinking!";)
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Staff member
Super Moderator
#24
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

I have to agree with Jim's posting. I learned this in my early years as a tier 1QM (70's) and some of the dolts that made much ado about nothing. Easier to placate and let them show they "straightened out that supplier" instead to fight a battle you might win, but lose the war. Also a visit with little entertaining of golf, dinner, and cigars helped get them on your side. Nobody hurt and no problems created.
My situation was admittedly different, but in the chart-making world I had many "dolts" who insisted that they wanted pie charts, or moving averages, or "remove those control limits". My response was I'll show you how to make a pie chart or whatever in Excel, but YOU will make said chart, not me.

It was rather humorous - I had one group that absolutely did not want control limits on their charts, but couldn't figure out how to click on the control limit and hit the delete key. They would print out the charts, "white out" the control limits, and post them on the wall. It wasn't like you couldn't tell where the control limit was by the big blob of whiteout . . .:bonk:

But, I believe those days were important to go through. I truly believe that if I had acquiesed, and made the pie charts and what not, we never would have progressed to where we are today.
 

Paul Simpson

Trusted Information Resource
#27
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

By the way, I was an Internal Financial Auditor for Enron back when they were still HNG Internorth and believe me there was a lot of stuff .....:cool:

Qualitygal
Now therein lies a story ... any more?
 
Last edited:

Paul Simpson

Trusted Information Resource
#28
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

As much as we would all like to believe that the subject of ethics in business is circumscribed by bright lines, the truth is otherwise, I'm afraid. We all have to make decisions in difficult situations sometimes, and it's not always helpful to believe that telling the truth is always the best policy, or that businesses that have institutionalized prevarication are doomed because of it. While it's very true that any edifice built on a foundation of dishonesty is probably not going to survive when the going gets tough, it's also true that in some businesses lying is a way of life, and always has been. Most manufacturing job shops will tell lies in order to get your business, and then when they have it, will lie in order keep it. If you know this, you can deal with it.
As ever an interesting take on the thread, Jim. :applause:
IMHO it takes the thread from the simple "would you falsify a record?" that Covers have responded with a unanimous "No!" to on to the general topic of business ethics and the "little white lie" that we all know takes place in most companies on a daily basis. (Well, those that advertise, anyway! :lol: )

I have to confess to the little white lie on occasions for expediency but I don't feel good about it and recognize that, although nobody dies, it doesn't do any favours in the long term. The analogy is with Phil Crosby's ZD philosophy - if I allow a concession that becomes the de facto standard and next thing you know the slide downhill starts.

If you feel that being untruthful has the potential to hurt someone, or otherwise result in undesireable consequences, either for you or someone else, then the decision might be easy. But if you're dealing with a customer whose representative is a robotic dolt and believes that you must supply a corrective action report for a nonconformance that most reasonably intelligent dogs would recognize as an insignificant outlier, giving the customer what he wants might reasonably involve making stuff up.
Good point. That is the problem with customers - who would have them! :lmao:

:topic:
Same goes for certification - what about this .... if, as a 3rd party auditor, I raise a non compliance not based around a requirement in the standard - is that a lie?
 

Jim Wynne

Staff member
Admin
#30
Re: The dilemma of Falsifying Inspection Results

I don't quite agree on the pervasiveness of outright lying by job shops as much as I agree there are a lot of ignorant folks running and working in job shops who have no clue as to the shop's REAL capability or capacity. For the most part, these are well meaning folks who are deluding themselves even more than their customers about what they can or cannot perform adequately.
You raise an interesting point. It seems to me that the sort of thing you're referring to--"well meaning" dishonesty--is still dishonesty, and the ones who commit it are almost always aware that it's dishonest. I could go on at some length on this subject, but suffice it to say that in job shops, there's a different set of ethics, and although I've come to hate the word, a different sort of paradigm that regulates discourse with the outside world. The percentage of lies being told that are maliciously motivated is tiny enough to be considered almost nonexistent, but the simple fact is that when you enter a job shop, you're just not in Kansas anymore.

Maybe some of what Jim labels as "lies" is just "wishful thinking!"
Delusions, in other words. Maybe some of it is. An interesting and apropos story:

I was hired as quality manager for a machining job shop which had as a customer a former employer of mine. As such, I was well aware of this shop's capabilities before I got there. To be polite, they were not a finesse kind of house--everything was brute force. One day the owner came to me with an RFQ for a part I was well familiar with from my former employer, and it was the very definition of a finesse part. I knew immediately that if the job was accepted, it would be screwed up--nothing good could come of it. I told the owner as much, unambigously. He shrugged it off, saying, "Ah, it doesn't look that hard to do. If we're careful with it, we can do it."

He accepted the job, and there ensued a good three or four months of holy particular he11 in trying to make the part before the owner threw up his hands and gave up, complaining bitterly about how unreasonable the customer was. Wishful thinking? I don't think so, in this case. It was part hubris--not wanting to admit the job was too much for him--and part greed--being constitutionally unable to refuse a new revenue source.
 
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