Materials fraud from major Japanese vendor

Milland · Oct 11, 2017

I posted about this on another thread, but it's an important enough subject that it deserves its own:

Kobe Steel Faked Data for Metal Used in Planes and Cars - Bloomberg

This was a long-term problem where managers and others at Kobe Steel were shipping substandard material with falsified certifications, both for steels, and for some aluminum and copper products. The materials have wound up being used in military and aviation, and also in consumer products like cars.

So it pays when doing a critical job to at least consider having an independent lab check the materials you're planning on using to confirm they are what they claim.

SND · Oct 11, 2017

I highly doubt they're the only one doing this... probably happens quite a bit.

I would expect any really critical parts on say air planes to have coupons cut and sent for testing.

cmccull166 · Oct 11, 2017

A few years back I received Bronze bars in various sizes supplied by my customer,
I had to send a short length off each bar for some sort of testing?,one set of bars I was told to permanently mark unusable or scrap them.
These were long hinges for aircraft.

EndlessWaltz · Oct 12, 2017

Think about it guys, this is from the Japs, which I regarded as providing top end quality due the there culture etc. Now you have this on top of Takata...dang.

Makes you want to ask what crap you are getting from China and Taiwan.

chip_maker · Oct 12, 2017

EndlessWaltz said:
Think about it guys, this is from the Japs, which I regarded as providing top end quality due the there culture etc. Now you have this on top of Takata...dang.

The first thought that popped into my head was, whatever happened to Japanese honor?

Doing the right thing seems to be held in high regard there, or used to be anyways.

Oldwrench · Oct 12, 2017

chip_maker said:
The first thought that popped into my head was, whatever happened to Japanese honor?

Doing the right thing seems to be held in high regard there, or used to be anyways.

The Rape of Nanking? The Bataan Death March? By Western standards, "Japanese honor" has historically been a contradiction in terms.

I had hopes that half a century of prosperity and consumerism would have leavened their instincts somewhat, but they're showing they're just as opportunistic as everybody else. Next will be e-mails starting, "Dear beloved, I am the widow of the Japanese oil minister and need your help to smuggle 350 million yen..."

Well, no, their society won't have declined that far, but counterfeit material's a good start.

charlie gary · Oct 12, 2017

chip_maker said:
The first thought that popped into my head was, whatever happened to Japanese honor?

Doing the right thing seems to be held in high regard there, or used to be anyways.

We westernized them.

MattiJ · Oct 12, 2017

chip_maker said:
The first thought that popped into my head was, whatever happened to Japanese honor?

Doing the right thing seems to be held in high regard there, or used to be anyways.

"saving face" is also big deal in Japan.

Toshiba with manipulated nuclear reactor inspection reports (also huge accounting scandal)
TEPCO and things went nuclear..
Olympus scandal couple of years ago
Toyota gas pedal software
Bridgestone and Toyo tire with falsified reports, recalls and whatnot.

DDoug · Oct 12, 2017

EndlessWaltz said:
Makes you want to ask what crap you are getting from China and Taiwan.

We know from the low price it's crap, so incoming inspection is the new norm.

morsetaper2 · Oct 12, 2017

EndlessWaltz said:
Think about it guys, this is from the Japs, which I regarded as providing top end quality due the there culture etc. Now you have this on top of Takata...dang.

They're feeling the pressure from china. You know this sort of stuff is just the normal way in china.

rons · Oct 12, 2017

EndlessWaltz said:
Makes you want to ask what crap you are getting from China and Taiwan.

Recycled American crap.

Dave G. · Oct 12, 2017

digger doug said:
We know from the low price it's crap, so incoming inspection is the new norm.

And failure analysis after it's broken.

ManicMetalBasher · Oct 12, 2017

Here we go.
#6 Oldwrench
"The Rape of Nanking"
Indeed, approximately 300,000 Chinese dead.
Let us give this a sense of proportion.
Compared with approximately 70,000,000 Chinese killed by other Chinese in c20.
Not mentioned in PM very often, if at all, the 1941 US Japanese oil embargo (loveable FDR).
How many tens of millions of deaths would have that have caused?
US Morgenthau plan anyone? Intended to cause 20 million German deaths (loveable HST).
Every state has plenty of skeletons in the cupboard.
Let us not play "your ancestors did X".

In my view, Milland is an intelligent, well educated, experienced engineer, who has contributed greatly to PM.
Please just keep this relevant to his #1 which raised an apparently very rare, instance of Japanese duplicity.
Or we will need a moderator who will cull these unhelpful comments.
If not Gordon will take over, surely nobody wants that to happen.

Newman109 · Oct 12, 2017

ManicMetalBasher said:

Not mentioned in PM very often, if at all, the 1941 US Japanese oil embargo (loveable FDR).
How many tens of millions of deaths would have that have caused?

Hmm.....sounds like you are saying that FDR was responsible for Pearl Harbor and WWII. Well, in that case, I have to tell you that I'm still upset about how the British insisted on hanging onto the colonies back in 1775-1783. And for that matter, I'm still upset about the War of 1812 when they came back for another bite at the apple in 1812-1815.

Makes you wonder how many lives might have been saved had there been some restraint on the British side back in those days? I have these what if questions.

Now I expect that Gordon will come in and tell us that a Socialist approach might have saved the day. LOL.

Limy Sami · Oct 13, 2017

Anyway chaps, .now back to this duff steel from Japan - anyone heard the latest - it's made the BBC Kobe says 5 firms affected in steel scandal - BBC News and Kobe say 500 firms affected.

Chip Chester · Oct 13, 2017

Ruh-oh. Boeing. Boeing passenger jets have falsely-certified Kobe Steel products-source | Reuters

Tip of the "certs and traceability" iceberg? Only one of many companies affected, per the BBC link above.

Chip

Clive603 · Oct 13, 2017

Memo to BBC and the other hysteria generation sources :-

"You can't test in quality".

So how false was false?

I find it hard to believe that any of the major companies mentioned didn't have some form of internal / goods inward testing schedule. Or at least independent outside lab assessment. ISO 9000 requires such. Any material falling outside the boundaries of whatever properties were considered essential to safe use should have been picked up then. So one actually bad batch and suitably high up person would be on the phone "Kobe you have a problem... fix it." More than one in any short order "Kobe get you ass over here now and explain..."

Falsification of the paperwork chain? Now thats a different matter. Get real reporter guys'n gals happens all the time when Mr/Ms Higher Up has his bonus on the line and starts putting pressure on Mr/Ms Not So High Up and the PBI doing the work. In any decent firm there will be senior NCO types who will make it work well enough that there are no major disasters. (Bin there, dunnitt, snapped the choke chain so tight that couple of management types nearly got decapitated.)

Clive

Milland · Oct 13, 2017

ManicMetalBasher said:
In my view, Milland is an intelligent, well educated, experienced engineer, who has contributed greatly to PM. Please just keep this relevant to his #1 which raised an apparently very rare, instance of Japanese duplicity. Or we will need a moderator who will cull these unhelpful comments. If not Gordon will take over, surely nobody wants that to happen.

Oh, good heavens. I've pulled the wool over your eyes, I'm just a humble scullery wench with access to her master's computer - don't tell the Mum!

Appreciate the comment, but I'm a fairly good machinist with a decent background in ad hoc mech design. I've been privileged to work at some of the great Cambridge (the other one) Universities, where I've made a right pest of myself asking questions and getting paid to learn at the feet of some excellent engineers and scientists.

On the widening spread of affected companies, I expect this to run for quite a while, and it's going to shed light on how many prime manufacturers have failed to monitor incoming materials. In the "old days", every major manufacturing company would have their own test lab with proper metallurgists and the chemistry and properties testers on hand for inspection.

No longer, as budget cutting and "process streamlining" have gutted those areas to make way for other uses. I had a terrific metallurgy teacher back in tech HS, he was a proper "old school" guy, perhaps trained during or just after WWII. It was serious business back in his day, and I was grateful for the rigor that he taught with.

Now, just a generic cert filed away in a cabinet is supposed to be enough. I don't think this is a good situation, and we'll see what other companies are found out during the investigations.

DDoug · Oct 13, 2017

Clive603 said:
Memo to BBC and the other hysteria generation sources :-

"You can't test in quality".

So how false was false?

I find it hard to believe that any of the major companies mentioned didn't have some form of internal / goods inward testing schedule. Or at least independent outside lab assessment. ISO 9000 requires such. Any material falling outside the boundaries of whatever properties were considered essential to safe use should have been picked up then. So one actually bad batch and suitably high up person would be on the phone "Kobe you have a problem... fix it." More than one in any short order "Kobe get you ass over here now and explain..."

Falsification of the paperwork chain? Now thats a different matter. Get real reporter guys'n gals happens all the time when Mr/Ms Higher Up has his bonus on the line and starts putting pressure on Mr/Ms Not So High Up and the PBI doing the work. In any decent firm there will be senior NCO types who will make it work well enough that there are no major disasters. (Bin there, dunnitt, snapped the choke chain so tight that couple of management types nearly got decapitated.)

Clive

Iso 9000 requires what ?

As we were told when Iso 9000 came out..."if you make crap, state it in the documents, and inspect
to that."

"Kobe get over here and fix this"
Surely you jest.
A Kobe rep will appear for sure, but probably just to negotiate
a "smoothing over" of this "Trivial matter", and all will be good.

Milland · Oct 13, 2017

Here's another news story, perhaps similar to Limy's above: Kobe Steel Announces More Cases Of Faked Inspections Data

Materials fraud from major Japanese vendor

Diamond

Diamond

Hot Rolled

Cast Iron

Stainless

Titanium

Stainless

Titanium

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Cast Iron

Hot Rolled

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

Titanium

Diamond

Diamond

Diamond

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