The story of Beautiful Bοmbs Corp.

Ross Woods, 2019

Beautiful Bοmbs Corp. makes lots of bοmbs. Big John, the boss of Beautiful Bοmbs, wanted to make sure that bοmbs did not explode when they weren’t supposed to, and always exploded when they were supposed to. He had a system where inspectors had to carefully check many parts of each bοmb at each stage of production. They had to fill in inspection checklists as they went, because nobody could remember each inspection item for each bοmb. If there were problems with bοmbs later on, at least he could show what had been checked.

Honest John carefully checked each part of each bοmb and filled in an inspection checklist as he went. He could not remember each inspection item for each bοmb, but the checklist was an excellent record that everything had been properly checked.

Dodgy Dan also made bοmbs at Beautiful Bοmbs but he did not like the inspection forms, so he did not fill them in. Then he heard that the auditor would come next day. That night he filled in all his inspection checklists since the last inspection.

Meticulous Mike, the auditor, looked at all the forms. Then he interviewed Honest John, Dodgy Dan, and Supervisor Sam:

• Honest John easily discussed how the system worked and what he did.
• Dodgy Dan sounded like he was making it up as he went along. Mike was suspicious.
• Supervisor Sam said that he often saw John filling in forms, and would ask about anything unclear. He always filed his checklist forms in Sam's office at the end of each day.
  Supervisor Sam also said that he had never seen Dan filling in forms, and he never asked about anything unclear. He ony filed his checklist forms in Sam's office immediately before audits.

Moral of the story: Checklists are a good record, but they are only useful when it can be shown that they are filled in at the time of the events they record.