Vendor Facility Tour - Conflict of Interest if Transport Included? 3

[ConstantEffort]

Is there even a perception of conflict of interest if a vendor pays my way to tour their out-of-town fabrication facility? Single day, there and back, one meal, no side trips. The catch... they're ferrying me back and forth in a private jet.

That seems to go beyond the minimal value arrangements I've stuck to in the past (e.g. a $10 lunch).

This is not the first vendor to offer to pay my way to tour a facility, but I've always been able to bow out on account of airline travel taking too much time. I'm running out of graceful excuses when the Lear can land 4 miles from my front door and 1/2 mile from their facility.

Gut says don't do it. Rationalizing says I would actually learn something. The means of transportation serves no lasting benefit to me, but my honest self has to admit that there's some glam factor to flying a private jet.

 

[zdas04]

It generally takes several years for common sense to break out in these situations.

Reimbursing them for the cost of the trip is a bigger accounting hassle than someone giving you $15 for their lunch. And then proving that you did actually give them the money can get tricky.

A side note: I was talking to a corporate pilot a while back and he was complaining that jobs for corporate pilots were getting scarcer every year, and the FBO waiting rooms were a lot less fun than they used to be. The ethics/bribery issues are just too common and too widespread and many huge companies have eliminated their airplane departments and allow executives to charter planes when justified. I don't think we are many years from the extinction of the corporate jet being owned or long-term leased by corporations whose main business is other than flight services.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[stevenal]

"The lawyer said that the corporation did not see any difference between any of the flights." So they were all acceptable?

 

[zdas04]

Something like that.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

Law is the common force organized to act as an obstacle of injustice Frédéric Bastiat

 

[hokie66]

I despair and hate this PC crap. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket when you can't shout someone lunch.

 

[racookpe1978]

Corporate jet doesn't pass my "smell right" test.
Them paying for a commercial flight for you to make a tour of their plant - is not marginal, but it CANNOT be hidden or below-the-table: "Here's the letter, here's the ticket, this is what we will do during the tour, this is what we will demonstrate using our machinery and our jigs and our fixtures and our test apparatus."
They are selling a service for YOUR product. It is YOUR responsibility to be able to study THEIR ability to build YOUR product, and I would criticize anyone buying a critical service if they only used a computerized thumbdrive to see a PPT presentation of somebody's machining department.

 

[racookpe1978]

And, the blunt question is, can you be corrupted?

 

[IRstuff]

You don't need to be "corrupted;" you simply need to be slightly biased. How can you rationally evaluate an actual in-plant trip with actual time on an equipment vs. a powerpoint presentation?

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[moltenmetal]

I took the a private jet once, with quite a few of my colleagues, for a tour of the facilities of a particular compression fitting manufacturer of whom we were, and remain, a significant customer. The trip convinced me to give serious consideration to using other vendors of compression fittings, which I had dismissed before, because it was clear to me from the visit that this particular company spends too much on marketing and cares little about optimizing their manufacturing processes to reduce cost, and that I no longer wished to pay for that as a customer unless I had no alternative. The net result is that the trip has saved my company an enormous amount of money on my projects, which use alternatives to this brand unless the client insists on a particular brand, because we previously had been using that brand exclusively. There has been no significant quality-related impact, and we do use these fittings under challenging conditions and test the resulting assemblies quite thoroughly.

Fortunately, we had no policy against accepting flights on corporate jets, lavish dinners and a night in a hotel, or we would have missed this opportunity for learning...but of course, some people who attended that tour did not learn the same things that I did. So it goes, and hence the justification for such policies.

 

[racookpe1978]

True. The gadget is not made in the fancy hotel room by a powerpoint presentation after a nice jet ride with marketing.

It can be sold that way, but it isn't made that way. Make sure you tell your boss that if you accept the flight offer. You do need to see the plant floor and talk to the workers.

 

[IRstuff]

I have often found that such junkets cut both ways. I was once taken to lunch by a rep, who drove me to the restaurant, parked the car in the handicapped spot, and hung up a handicapped sign. I never did any business with him again. Had it not been for the lunch junket, I might not have known what a sleaze the guy was. But, it could have turned out that he might made a good impression, or, I might have found out that his competitors were even worse sleazes. These are valid evaluation criteria; after all, when we do proposals, we are often required to list prior experience, and the evaluator often does follow up and query our former customers for their feedback, or the proposal actually requires the feedback to be solicited. Naturally, we NEVER have negative responses; gee I wonder how that happens?

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[TomDOT]

Flying you out to the factory could easily be a cost-savings measure for the vendor.

Option 1: Fly 4 guys out to see you, each of them lose 1 day of work. Jet flys both ways. Company pays for 8 meals.

Option 2: Fly you out to see the 4 guys at the factory, each of them lose 1 hour of work. Jet flys both ways. Company pays for 2 meals.

Even better if they're flying commercial.

Option 1: Fly 4 guys out to see you, each of them lose 1 day of work, company pays for 4 commercial tickets and 8 meals.

Option 2: Fly you out to see the 4 guys at the factory, each of them lose 1 hour of work, company pays for 1 commercial ticket and 2 meals.

 

[spongebob007]

This isn't so much about trusting your gut as getting a clear understanding of what your company policy is in matters like these. I used to work in private industry and on many occasions I would be taken out to lunch by vendors, given gifts by vendors/customers, even had a customer let me use his ski house. I now work for the U.S. government and there are very strict rules about this kind of stuff. I can't accept any gifts that aren't nominal in value (I think $50 is the upper limit) and I am not allowed to give ANY gifts of any kind to our customers-even lunch. If I go out to lunch with a customer or potential customer I have to tell them that they need to pay for their own meal.

 

[IRstuff]

Well, the echoes when someone actually drops money into our customer "Straight Arrow" container are deafening. ;-)

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