barring ex-inspectors? 1

[HgTX]

I suppose this is only peripherally related to engineering, but I was reminded of this situation by thread765-160961.

[For the purpose of this discussion, quality control is done by the fabricator/contractor/supplier and quality assurance is done by the owner. I realize there are other uses of these terms out there.]

The fabricators have QC inspectors. The owners (quite often government agencies) have QA inspectors. The consulting companies have inspectors that hire out to the owners for QA.

I've seen QC inspectors leave the fabricator and go to work for the owner--and wind up inspecting as QA in their ex-plant. I've seen QC inspectors leave the fabricator and go to work for the 3rd-party company, who is then contracted to the owner--same result. I've also seen QA inspectors leave the owner and go to work for the fabricator, doing QC on jobs for their former employer.

There's generally a little bit of grumbling on the part of the ex-employer either way, but it all seems to work out.

Now we have a fabricator saying that they won't allow any QA inspector onsite that worked for them in the past year. Which basically means they're dictating to the owners who they choose as QA inspection personnel, not normally a perogative of theirs. And no, they've signed no individual agreements with their former employees, either when they were first hired or when they left, in which the employee agrees not to work in their shop for a certain period.

They claim this policy is standard industry practice. Standard industry practice that I've seen indicates that this kind of transfer happens all the damn time and that such policies are in fact NOT standard.

Have y'all seen much of either side of this, either the inspectors switching sides or the fabricator being able to dictate terms to the owner in terms of who they send to witness the work?

Hg



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[Ashereng]

Sounds like some "personality issues".

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[HgTX]

Of course the policy is driven by personality issues. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the response can't be given in personality terms...

Hg


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[MikeHalloran]

So, the fabricator in question has no contract with their former employee, and they are trying to dictate the terms of a contract between the former employee and his new employer, a contract to which they are not a party. Not SOP on my planet.

In some other universe, i.e. were I an owner, faced with such an outrageous demand, I'd make a point of hiring ex-employees of this fabricator, specifically for whatever special knowledge or suspicions they might possess.

I'd also hire some extra- pushy lawyers to escalate any resulting confrontations, and to make a very public point of asking exactly what they are trying to hide.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Ron]

HgTX...probably the reason they won't let a former employee in as a QA inspector is that they know all too well where to look for the dirt! Since QA inspection is rarely full time, a former employee would have a distinct advantage to go in and pick out problematic areas pretty quickly.

 

[MedicineEng]

This happens all the time. In my company there was a former employee that now works for the regulating body that issues the ISO9001 certification and comes every year to inspect us. It is a kind of unconfortable situation, I guess. We never had particualr problems raised by that ex-employee, but in another case if the ex-employee leaves the company with some kind of resentment, then (s)he can raise unnecessary problems just as vengeance.
Noe, this is a question of suppler power: If I am a big company with a product that only me (or few) sell, then I can dictate who inspects and who doesn't. If in the other way I am the small mama&papa shop, then I have to eat whatever they give it to me.
But in the bottomline, no company likes to be inspected by an ex-employee.

 

[MintJulep]

Happens frequently in my industry.

Ron has hit it on the head. Inspector leaving the contractor knows which carpet all of the dirt is swept under.

 

[IRstuff]

Can't see how the fabricator can get away with it, since they'd be in breech of contract, particularly if the customer is G.

TTFN

 

[JStephen]

It seems it would be worthwhile to ask discretely what's going on.

It could be a company concerned about inspectors fired for incompetance coming back to exact vengeance. It could be that the company has problems losing inspectors and is trying to limit the loss in that way. It could be the knowing-which-carpet-the-dirt-is-under problem. The 1-year limitation seems to point to the first two, rather than the third, issues.

Anyway, if there's not any other contractual requirement, they shouldn't be able to dictate inspectors. If they suspect problems with a particular inspector, they should let you know of the person in question, and try to do a work-around that way.

 

[HgTX]

We know what's going on. They have nothing more to hide than anyone else does; someone is just grumpy with someone else. (The story's much sillier than I've told it, but I'm pretty identifiable here to people who know me, so I'll leave out the details.)

Just sanity-checking...my view is pretty much exactly that of Mike Halloran's post of 26 Jul 06 21:05, but escalating hostilities isn't really the way to go.

Thanks!

Hg

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[epoisses]

Sure they would know under which carpet to look... but on the other hand you wouldn't want to send Mr Grumpy to his previous company to have what is supposed to be a decent inspection degrade into some unproductive retaliation operation.

 

[HgTX]

It's not the inspector who's Mr. Grumpy in this case...

If the inspector is doing something in violation of the contract (like demanding that they perform to higher standards than those required by the specification, or interfering unduly with the work), that should be (and on occasion has been) dealt with on those grounds--and this is the case regardless of employment history of the inspector. Pre-emptive strikes are not needed.

Hg

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[IRstuff]

Well, we don't know that YET... People or companies rarely are able to comply 100% with each and every regulation and rule, particularly if the customer has been lax about enforcement.

Therefore, while a disgruntled employee might not have a contractual recourse to impose additional scope, he can certainly find all sorts of trivial violations of the contract T&Cs, particularly if the FAR is involved.

We just ran across one FAR that had never been enforced until yesterday and are now reeling over the scope of the requirement.

TTFN