Idiot Corporation of America?
Ga. peanut plant
has history of problems - Food safety- msnbc.com
There was a lot of focus in the news yesterday about this peanut
contamination being an “FDA problem”, with
President Obama pointing at a lack of proper inspection and
oversight.
I’d tend to view this as a business ethics problem. Companies,
manufacturers, and managers need ethics and a sense of purpose to
society. The government can’t inspect every business (or hospital)
100% of the time. Business can’t just be about maximizing
short-term profits (Principle 1 of the Toyota Way
reads: “Base your management decisions on a long-term
philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.”
Short-term thinking is at the root of many of our problems
in business and government.
So what happened with the “Peanut Corporation of America”? I know I
shouldn’t call people “idiots” (or a company)… the whole “respect
for people” thing, but I’m going to anyway. What’s wrong with the
idiots who run this peanut company?
Officials said the Peanut Corp. of America plant had
shipped products that the company’s own initial tests found to be
positive for salmonella. They retested and got a negative
reading.
So you have a product that you KNOW is contaminated and you ship it
anyway? Hello, jail time anybody?
The company kept testing until they got the result they wanted –
negative:
“The inspection revealed that the firm’s
internal testing program identified salmonella,” said Michael
Rogers, director of FDA’s division of field investigations.
“In some cases … a subsequent lab was used that reached a
negative conclusion.” Peanut Corp. then shipped the
products.
So did they find an incompetent lab or did they pay them off to get
the negative test?
“Inspections are worthless if companies can test
and retest until they receive the results they want,” said
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich, who heads a congressional panel
conducting its own inquiry. He’s introduced legislation to
end such “lab shopping” and to require companies to
submit all test results to the FDA. Officials said Peanut Corp. did
not initially disclose the test results that found
salmonella.
Rep. Stupak wants new legislation. Maybe this is already against
the law, according to the NY Times article:
It is illegal for a company to continue testing a
product until it gets a clean test, said Michael Taylor, a food
safety expert at George Washington University.
So why would managers make a decision like this? Was their bonus on
the line? Were they under the pressure of financial or “pay for
performance” incentives to the point where they couldn’t bear to
make the right decision (not shipping)? Maybe their family’s house
was on the line if they didn’t make the numbers and they lost their
job? That’s reckless speculation on my part… but I could see that
scenario being part of what happened. I wonder if we’ll find out
what happened behind the scenes?
Without naming names, I’ve worked at a couple of manufacturing
companies where quantity was the priority over quality. Ship it!
Move the boxes! Make the numbers! At least people (children, even!)
weren’t going to get potentially poisoned and die from the wrong
decision in those cases.
The NY Times story outlines many examples of known problems being
ignored and proper standardized work not being followed. This is a
management problem, not a government problem.
The Georgia food plant that federal investigators say
knowingly shipped contaminated peanut butter also had mold growing on its ceiling and walls, and it
has foot-long gaps in its roof, according to results of a
federal inspection.
and…
The firm took no steps
to clean its plant after the test results alerted the
company to the contamination, he said, and the inspection team found problems with the
plant’s routine cleaning procedures as
well.
and…
Previous inspections of the plant by the Georgia State
Agriculture Department found dirty
surfaces, grease residue and dirt buildup throughout the
plant. They also found rust residue that could flake into food,
gaps in warehouse doors large
enough for rodents to enter, and numerous other
problems.
And it wasn’t just this one isolated factory, where they could
blame one lowly manager. They also had similar problems
with a plant in Texas. No salmonella there, so no problem? Um,
the “results” were good, but the process was terrible — a dirty
filthy plant with roaches everywhere.
This
planetfeedback.com page that I stumbled across searching for
perspectives from managers lists contact info for the owner and
president of the company? I wonder if I can get a podcast interview
with him, ha ha.
It’s just sad. I’m about out of outrage anymore. What’s the root
cause? Our culture? Our society? Not looking good… but thank
goodness for Captain “Sully”
and his crew, at least. I’m long overdue in blogging about that
bright shiny story. Did you know his local library is going to
forgive the fines and late fees resulting from him losing a library
book in the Hudson River?? What was he reading?
A book on business ethics. Amazing. Nice ethics by the library,
by the way!!
Mark commented:
Stewart Parnell and Tian Wenhua both led respected companies who
had food safety problems. Consider, though, the difference in
consequences pointed out here:
digitalhiss.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/fda-ga-plant-knowingly-shipped-tainted-products-yahoo-news/
David Grasby commented:
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