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What could happen to the quality control manager for Peanut Corp. of America?

What might happen to the quality control manager for the Peanut Corp. if he was employed at the Blakely plant during 2007 when bad products were released?

I too have thought about this as I have been a quality manager at several plants and have worked with other quality managers for over 20 years.

Actually, it will be the plant manager who will be going (or is gone) to jail. Also, any other manager and possibly hourly personnel who purposefully covered up any negative information.

As for the quality manager, a lot will depend on a number of variables; in any event, I am sure glad that I am not there -

1) How organized is/was this manager with the data that they processed related to quality. Did the quality manager even know that data was being covered up (yes, they should know, but that does not always occur)? A quality manager usually has to work very hard to get the true data recorded accurately and secured into the official records.

2) Since the news media has stated that information/data was being covered up (which is questionable at this point), the records will need to be checked. Who had/has access to the records? What roll does the production personnel play in the testing (not all testing is conducted by personnel reporting to the quality manager). I have seen many times when operators only record information (sometime made up data) that the supervisors want to see.

3) Which Quality Management System was being used. The FDA is very strict and the overall system needs to be reviewed. The news media has also raised questions about cleanliness. Was this being called out in any of the internal quality audits (which is should have been).

4) Does the quality manager have records of raising issues up the chain of command (and was over-ruled)? In most plant situations, the quality manager reports to the plant manager who can give orders to ‘cover things up’. Never mind about the whistle blower rule – when it comes to having your seat in the chair, you do what your boss says or you leave (one way or another).

5) Was there a corporate quality group or other corp level personnel involved in what was going on? I have seen many times when plant level personnel try their hardest to satisfy the customer only to be undermined by the corp staff. I have seen entire management team kick out of their jobs because they are not doing what the corporate leaders are requiring in shortcutting quality and delivery of products.

6) And there could be more from a legal issue that could impact this case.

So yes, the quality manager may end up going to jail over this. However, if they were on their toes and keep good records and knew that there was an issue, then it may very well be a lot of other people finding themselves behind bars.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this one!

Also – you may want to watch what the American Society for Quality come up with around the topic of Social Responsibility. The ISO is also creating guidelines (versus an auditable standard) on Social Responsibility.

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