The Chains of Affiliation
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

Last week I had a bad week. Well, not bad on an absolute scale. Nothing life-changing happened. Not if you ignore the financial melt down. But it was bad enough for my liking: I had to sit and watch as two of my teams lost to their opposition. It is not only the losing which worries me but how much I am affected by it at the time. I have always been a bad loser and my Dad used to tell me: "It is only a game of kicky ball". You can probably imagine that this didn’t really help at the time. I have played in and supported many teams (obviously I wasn't fortunate to play for the same ones that I have supported) that have lost matches over the years and, as a result, I know that I will soon commit the defeat to the past and look forward to the next game or season. So why, with all this experience, do I still feel as bad after a defeat as I did when I lost at touch rugby in the street as a child? Especially when I'm a spectator rather than a participant?

Before you all write in with psycho-analyses I think I may have the answer: affiliation. Affiliations take time to get established, but once they are, they exert powerful influences over us and they tend to stay with us for a long time. We have particularly strong affiliations with sports teams: for life, if football chants are to believed. Life would be less frustrating without such affiliations because we could always switch to support the winning team and never lose! Affiliations crop up in other areas of life, ranging from small groups to worldwide religions. One affiliation I have retained is to the subject I studied at university. Since graduating I haven't actually worked in Chemical Engineering but through NDT I have maintained an affiliation with the subject and take any opportunity to keep abreast of news.

So when a colleague told me there was a news item on inspection in the recent IChemE journal I was keen to have a look at it. The article related the story of the inspector in the US who is facing five years in jail and a $250,000 fine after being found guilty of falsifying inspection records and lying to the NRC about his inspections. The Besse-Davis reactor was shut down in 2002 when corrosion in the reactor head was found to have reduced the wall thickness from 165 mm to just 6 mm. Six months earlier the inspector, a coolant system engineer, had assured the NRC that the inspections of the reactor head were adequate to assure safe operation. According to the report, the plant operator blames the engineer for sub-standard inspections. The prosecution presented evidence to show that the inspections couldn't have been conducted properly, whilst the engineer claims he is being used as a scapegoat. The engineer’s supervisor was convicted in 2007 for concealing the corrosion and sentenced to three years' probation.

It is not often that we read about convictions for sub-standard inspection but I think we have all heard accounts of inspections not being performed correctly and reports not stating the actual results. One such example was described by the author of one of a series of articles on ethics in the July edition of TNT, the ASNT magazine for the NDT Practitioner. In this particular case the false reports were discovered because it was noticed that there had been no access to the welds purported to have been inspected. In this case the technician was not taken to court but was terminated 'for cause'. The assistant technician who was working with him was given time off without pay and provided remedial training.

The apparent reason for falsifying the results was to get the work done within a certain time and as the welds that were inspected were defect-free, it was assumed that the others would also be free of defects. The assistant technician apparently went along with the scheme because he was intimidated by the seniority of the technician.

We can all put ourselves in the position of the trainee. Does our affiliation to our colleague outweigh our affiliation to safety? Is the affiliation to safety weakened by the lack of affiliation shown to inspections and safety by the organisation we are working for? From the NDT company's point of view, their corrective action went some way to ensuring the future affiliation of technicians but had they been doing anything previous to the incident?

The article in TNT is entitled 'Professional Ethics – The Employer and Employee'. I intend to continue the theme of Ethics next month. In the meantime I am off to watch the World Cup qualifier. Luckily my affiliation to the national soccer team has waned in recent years, so I know I won't be getting too upset!

Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author's own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within the NDT Newspaper. They do not represent the views of the IVC, Serco Assurance or the HSE who funded the PANI projects.

Letters can be mailed to The Editor, NDT News, 1 Spencer Parade, Northampton NN1 5AA. Fax: 01604 231489; E-mail: ndtnews@bindt.org or e-mail Bernard McGrath direct at Bernard.McGrath@sercoassurance.com