I would never want to believe that a business, operated by intelligent and moral people, could sacrifice quality, and even ethics, to produce a product and complete a sale. Yet recently, I witnessed a business that was so desperate to make a few deadlines, it bypassed due diligence to get a product delivered.

I can’t discuss the specific challenges or events I witnessed, but there are some basic behaviors that turn good and reasonable intentions into news-making, business-damaging disasters.

Imagine a project engineer submits an order for a complete product assembly, even though it’s not complete or what the engineering order (EO) process directs.

A manager explains that there is no intent to build the product from this EO, and that they only want to issue the EO to get the bill of materials into the system. Unfortunately, once the EO is issued, the process takes over, and there is nothing to prevent the manufacturing and assembly of the project as parts start to arrive.

The production floor, upon looking for drawings and documentation to begin the assembly process, can’t find instructions in the system because they are not completed and nothing prevented production from starting as intended.

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