How to explain deliberate sabotage?

Y'all just don't get it, a person doesn't have to be disgruntled or anything negative, they can be totally the opposite and very good employee just to create harm as part of a strategy to do harm for personal gain or gain to others. They can become an employee with every intent to create havoc or damage for political or religious reasons years down the line. The list goes on. No amount of cause analysis, 8D or any of that stuff can resolve this. To understand why people do things you've got to get out of the boxes you're presently in . There is no way on earth you can predict or plan for what a person might do today, tomorrow, next year or even in the next hour.

Sidney Vianna said:

If the company goes on the record putting on paper that the former employee deliberately and willfully shipped nonconforming products, they could be in for some real legal troubles. They have a strong suspicion, but, without a confession, they can’t know for sure. If the allegations of sabotage are ever made public, the individual could sue the organization for damages to her employment ability.

Click to expand...

Yep, it's been done, but no you don't need a confession if the evidence is good (I put quite a few people in prison without their saying anything).

RoxaneB said:

Because, yes, employee relations certainly sound like they're a contributing cause, but what if she was just having a bad day (i.e., wasn't unhappy with her current shift assignment, but was just tired)? The same effect could have occurred, could it not?

Click to expand...

This was the point I was trying to make.

That, and that if the nonconforming product had not been produced in the first place, an employee could not have packed them intentionally or accidentally.

Cari Spears said:

This was the point I was trying to make.

That, and that if the nonconforming product had not been produced in the first place, an employee could not have packed them intentionally or accidentally.

Click to expand...

Cari it ain't the existence of nonconforming product, get past that, if a person is inclined to create havoc/harm on an employer for any reason from being mad about a work situation or to being paid or induced to do so, or just to get their rocks off, they can create the problem from scratch, especially if their job puts them in a position to do so, and that is something that cannot be controlled.

If business professionals would take the time to study "people" and nowadays include that knowledge in their attempts to understand "process" lots of stuff would go smoother and become more effective. I thank goodness often on my taking things like "Motivational Psychology" in school and have put what I learned to use frequently through today.

I see a number of good issue types being discussed here.

1) People: We always have the choice to behave well or badly. It sounds as though Azaarus tried to offer what was reasonable, but the employee did not agree and felt slighted by the options offered. Perhaps this employee felt she was being discriminated against. Is that possible? If so, how would you work to ensure people in future feel they are playing on an "even field"? Could this employee have been offered a time-based path to return to her desired job and shift? Yes I know this is hard to manage, but we need to plan ahead for our availability of competencies don't we? Could a growth path have been explored that would keep her on her desired shift? (would she have been worth it? It was said she was a "good quality inspector")

We can't always fulfill everyone's desires, but willful sabotage is always possible so we should plan for that. See the following.

2) Reduce defects. This is certainly valid. We should reduce defects so there is less bad stuff for someone to willfully/mistakenly include in good stuff shipments. Nonetheless, the law of statistics states there is no such thing as a flat line so we should plan for the worst. On to #3.

3) Nonconforming material handling: How is your nonconforming material being managed so it stays out of the production stream? This is critical for every case, regardless of employee devotion. How can you work to prevent bad parts from being made available to package along with good parts?

4) Process flow: How does an employee, devoted or not, have the ability to select which parts to include in shipment? How does your process flow allow that? How does your nonconforming material management methods allow that (see #3)

5) Third shift: this was not discussed I think. Are processes being managed differently on third shift versus first shift? My experience says "yes" which helps explain why ABs insist that CBs audit all production shifts, in order to help ensure controls are equally enforced. The main question is, was this employee able to incorporate bad parts into good parts shipments because third shift atmosphere is more relaxed? The term "While the cat's away, the mice will play" is the point. I suggest you also examine whether controls are as rigorously enforced on Shift 2 and Shift 3 as they are on Shift 1.

I hope this helps!

Randy said:

Cari it ain't the existence of nonconforming product, get past that, if a person is inclined to create havoc/harm on an employer for any reason from being mad about a work situation or to being paid or induced to do so, or just to get their rocks off, they can create the problem from scratch, especially if their job puts them in a position to do so, and that is something that cannot be controlled.

If business professionals would take the time to study "people" and nowadays include that knowledge in their attempts to understand "process" lots of stuff would go smoother and become more effective. I thank goodness often on my taking things like "Motivational Psychology" in school and have put what I learned to use frequently through today.

Click to expand...

I don't think any of us disagree that an individual can "create the problem from scratch."

Had all the parts been good and the individual deliberately damaged some prior to packing them, I'd be inclined to follow the root cause that is steeped in behaviour and psychology. However, if I am reading the OP's details correctly, we are facing a somewhat different situation here.

In this case, the employee is faced with good parts and bad parts provided from production, and she made the choice to pack up some bad parts.

Yes, this action is contrary to her role and responsibility (behaviour), however, we cannot disregard the fact that bad parts were provided to her in the first place (process). The existence of nonconforming parts provided her with the opportunity to pack them up. Had she only been presented with conforming parts, the details of the situation would be different.

There is, without question, a behavioural issue to recognize and address, but for the OP's original issue regarding the response to the customer, the fact that nonconforming parts were made in the first place does seem to be (based one what we know) the catalyst to this 'perfect storm' of causes leading to the effect of nonconforming parts being shipped.

RoxaneB said:

In this case, the employee is faced with good parts and bad parts provided from production, and she made the choice to pack up some bad parts.

Click to expand...

Without behavior/motivation driving the action the existence of readily available NC parts is meaningless. I see NC material all the time as do many others here, what I don't see is purposeful acts committed to create havoc/harm to employer/customer. Why is that? The motivation to do so, for whatever cause (which can never be 100% identified or controlled real or not) isn't present.

I think there are sometimes inexplicable events that could possibly be ascribed to deliberate actions. In such cases the question becomes "How do I explain this to the customer?" I don't think that airing dirty laundry in front of the customer is a good idea in the majority of cases. I would probably opt for claiming that there were setup parts inadvertently mixed with conforming parts, and provide an explanation as to how you will do a better job of controlling NC material in production.

None of us know the details as well as the OP, but my general philosophy is to tell the truth. No, it ain't always pretty and it ain't always fun, but it beats getting caught in a lie.

I've had to tell an aerospace prime that an inspector at my company lied and didn't actually check a characteristic on a bunch of parts even though he signed paperwork saying he did. Sometimes an admission like that is best made in a phone call or personal visit with the customer before actually sending it in writing.

If you're not 100% sure, but the preponderance of the evidence points to X being the cause, say so.

I've had to make some very embarrassing admissions to my customers over the years, but doing so gained me a lot of credibility points, so when I told them something, they believed me. My customer even offered me a job on multiple occasions.

Mike S. said:

None of us know the details as well as the OP, but my general philosophy is to tell the truth. No, it ain't always pretty and it ain't always fun, but it beats getting caught in a lie.

I've had to tell an aerospace prime that an inspector at my company lied and didn't actually check a characteristic on a bunch of parts even though he signed paperwork saying he did. Sometimes an admission like that is best made in a phone call or personal visit with the customer before actually sending it in writing.

If you're not 100% sure, but the preponderance of the evidence points to X being the cause, say so.

I've had to make some very embarrassing admissions to my customers over the years, but doing so gained me a lot of credibility points, so when I told them something, they believed me. My customer even offered me a job on multiple occasions.

Click to expand...

It all depends, I think, on the relationship with the customer to begin with. Sometimes telling the straightforward story is best, but I've seen too many cases where I was dealing with a CARbot who only wanted to close out the paperwork and telling the straight truth would have opened a very huge and unnecessary can of worms. In what I suggested, it seems clear that the OP needs to do a better job of controlling NC material in production, so if that can help to solve the problem, I think it's probably the best way.

I think you can never positively prevent someone who is intent on doing harm from doing harm.