From among these documents, the anonymous insider identified one particularly revealing example of [Canadian Standard Ass’n] certification. The insider quoted the “Master Contract” and report numbers for a product that had been submitted for CSA safety testing. This product was failed by the engineer assigned to test it (though we have copies of the tests, we’ll decline to name the honest engineers for obvious reasons). That’s a good failure, by the way, the product did not comply with minimum safety standards and failed its safety tests, so the engineer rightly failed it. That’s what they’re supposed to do. After that failure, the product manufacturer resubmitted the same product, with no changes or improvements, for retesting. The product was failed a second time, on this occasion by a different CSA engineer. Again, this engineer acted correctly. RestoreCSA has long maintained that there are good and decent people in CSA’s house of cards, they’re just not in charge of the place.
So what happened to the failed product?
There is a push in many corporations/manufacturers to replace experienced capable engineers with foreign born/trained, cheaper, unqualified “engineers” who will do what they are told by management. I have witnessed this alot in the past 15-20 years. I have lost a few jobs for refusing to design unsafe products using substandard components. Testing within many manufacturers is cursary and are designed to avoid finding defects. I and many other colleagues have paid a heavy price for being ethical employment wise. I am glad that the engineers at CSA remain true to their profession. Unfortunately the management of CSA appears to be following the cost accountant route.
I think there has been a fundamental shift in many manufacturers in the last 2 decades to engineering decisions taken out of the hands of engineers and placed into the hands of cost accountants and bean counters with the goal of maximizing profit and reducing costs, safety be damned. I have witnessed in fact a disdain for the profession of engineering by the people who make decisions now.
Unfortunately this type of mentality leads to other costs which are not readily apparent — health costs for people who may have been hurt from faulty products, increased insurance costs due to faulty manufactured goods causing personal injury/death/material damage, a leveling of the playing field where North American standards developed over the last century are ignored of lowering the bar to 3rd world levels instead of vice versa. Things like safe cars, safe airplanes, safe homes which we took for granted may not be a consideration in the future.
In over 50 years as an engineer, at 5 different companies, I have never, never been ordered to pass a production of product test by any management person. Maybe it is because I was always a grouch and mean. I have had management pressure inspectors to pass things, but most of them didn’t. In fact, I have been with company that took a half a billion dollar hickey redoing a test that the inspectors had botched in ignorance. Most upper professional management types are pretty honest in my experience. The problem for me seems to be inspector ignorance, and some lower and middle management having reached their level of incompetence.
In every company I have been with, the ethical level demanded the immediate dismissal of anyone who knowingly lied about a test or the results thereof. Right before retirement, I had some encounters with young engineers who would argue about designs or tests, but that was mostly because they had never been exposed to the “lessons learned.” They don’t teach that anymore, and now that the old timers are leaving, they will have to relive those problems. FYI, the military still heavily teaches and documents “lessons learned.” For all you management types, you should make your engineers start a documented “lessons learned” program. I guarantee you your lives will be so much easier in the future.
The posting lacks technical information Re: A test check list. Without a complete explanation of why it failed, the report could be considered less than useless. If the CSA engineers are Engineers; they should know how to write a proper technical report.
Are the Test details, per check list, available?
Clearly, if all the details you demand were published, it could identify the product in question, and thereby identify the honest engineer who is blowing the whistle. There is enough money at stake here that his life could be in danger, let alone his job.
I don’t want to know the actual tested Item, only that the testing follows common practices. The use of an unprofessional check list suggests that testing was subjective (like AGW claims) without proper procedure & results that could be replicated & corrected by the Vendor.
Engineering is not a contact sport, the Lab & the vendor Engineering normally work together such that the agreed process results in BEST practices. Both are better educated and the product end-user is better served. Engineers don’t screw up deliberately, it’s just a missed opportunity, or bad assumption.
I have experience with professional Broadcast Equipment. As an Engineering Project Manager I have generated the necessary requisition for Lab evaluations. Testing is not a trivial task
satisfied by a general “test it”, but requires coordination (over tea time with my Lab buddies) as to “what” can be expected, & “how” can it be done, & do we have the test equipment.
Phillip,
In reply to your comments, we can’t be more specific on the testing for reasons already outlined by Gordinkneehill. What we can say is that the first two tests were standard for the type of equipment being tested and the failed equipment was eventually signed as passed without further testing or change to the product. The failures were recorded by engineers on the floor, the failed-but-passed result was recorded by managers. So, the proper procedures were followed twice resulting in two fails, and on the third trip these procedures were ignored resulting in a pass.
While we’re clearly interested in the testing, CSA is interested in the revenue, and that’s a big difference.
Thanks Phillip,
Gord
RestoreCSA.com
As this drags on, our politicians look uglier and more stupid each day.
They claim we can trust them to do the right thing, then when shown the most obvious examples of corruption within government, they then reveal they have no idea as to what the right thing is.
Our kleptocrats, beautifully illustrated at CSA, are destroying civil society.
The current crop of politicians are fools and/or bandits.
This story resonates with many tradesmen.
We unpaid taxcollectors have been subject to the idiocy of these private laws for decades, the rot really started to show about 10-15 years ago.
Combine this tale with the High River Gun Grab, Environment Canada’s Autocratic rule, tax grab at 40% on average and the rise of the takers.
How is your faith in our governments?