In Yaya Company, operations director Ben Janoon recently realised there had been an increase in products failing the final quality checks. These checks were carried out in the QC (quality control) laboratory, which tested finished goods products before being released for sale. The product failure rate had risen from 1% of items two years ago to 4% now, and this meant an increase of hundreds of items of output a month which were not sold on to Yaya’s customers. The failed products had no value to the company once they had failed QC as the rework costs were not economic. Because the increase was gradual, it took a while for Mr Janoon to realise that the failure rate had risen.
A thorough review of the main production operation revealed nothing that might explain the increased failure and so attention was focused instead on the QC laboratory. For some years, the QC laboratory at Yaya, managed by Jane Goo, had been marginalised in the company, with its two staff working in a remote laboratory well away from other employees. Operations director Ben Janoon, who designed the internal control systems in Yaya, rarely visited the QC lab because of its remote location. He never asked for information on product failure rates to be reported to him and did not understand the science involved in the QC process. He relied on the two QC staff, Jane Goo and her assistant John Zong, both of whom did have relevant scientific qualifications.
The two QC staff considered themselves low paid. Whilst in theory they reported to Mr Janoon, in practice, they conducted their work with little contact with colleagues. The work was routine and involved testing products against a set of compliance standards. A single signature on a product compliance report was required to pass or fail in QC and these reports were then filed away with no-one else seeing them.
It was eventually established that Jane Goo had found a local buyer to pay her directly for any of Yaya’s products which had failed the QC tests. The increased failure rate had resulted from her signing products as having ‘failed QC’ when, in fact, they had passed. She kept the proceeds from the sales for herself, and also paid her assistant, John Zong, a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of the failed products.
Required:
(a) Explain typical reasons why an internal control system might be ineffective. (5 marks)
(b) Explain the internal control deficiencies that led to the increased product failures at Yaya. (10 marks)
(c) Discuss the general qualities of useful information, stating clearly how they would be of benefit to Mr Janoon, and recommend specific measures which would improve information flow from the QC lab to Mr Janoon. (10 marks)