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Over the years, I have seen many attempts to obtain an advantage in markets by selling product based on quality. I have also seen many shenanigans as people try to short cut quality.

One of the worst I have seen in our industry (and this is nearly thirty years old, so don't look around for the guilty parties) was an outright fraudulent exercise in making up the data. Can the actual guilty parties be fully blamed, though? The lab was not maintained within TAPPI standards and those in charge could not get the money to make necessary repairs. Quality does come at a price. Ironically at the same time, this company had a big push on to make quality part of everyone's job.

Faking quality has its price, too. Outside our industry, there is a blatant case unfolding before our eyes as we speak. It is the case of Volkswagen and the allegations that it has programmed the engines in its cars so that they perform differently during emissions tests than under normal driving conditions. This development is just in its infancy, but it is large enough and mainstream enough that it will continue to make headlines until it plays out. We will all see what the cost of this quality deception is to Volkswagen.

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This reminds me of a situation nearly one hundred years old. Tractor manufacturers back in the early days of mechanized power on the farm made all sorts of outlandish claims about the horsepower of their tractors. The state of Nebraska decided to do something about this and came up with the Nebraska Tractor Test http://tractortestlab.unl.edu/. The Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory was established in 1920 in response to the requirements of the Nebraska Tractor Test Act of 1919 which required all agricultural tractors advertised and sold in Nebraska to be tested. This cleaned up this industry nationwide and made honest reporting the norm. If your tractor model had not been tested at Nebraska, it was not considered for whatever horsepower it claimed.

But look at what one company did in recent years. The tractor tests have become very expensive. When Kubota came to the United States, they decided they did not want to pay for this testing. Their way around this issue? Do not sell tractors in Nebraska. This worked very well for them and they became known for selling a quality product. (In recent years, I think they have had some--but not all--their models tested, despite skipping Nebraska.)

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Lots of paper is being sold on the internet these days, particularly on sites on LinkedIn. Every few weeks, you'll see a posting in which someone did not get what they ordered, or sent money and did not receive anything. Why anyone would send any money, and I assume we are talking substantial amounts, to a company purporting to be selling paper of a certain grade, all the while not knowing the supplier is beyond me. But it happens.

So, honest quality can bring you business. Dishonest quality can bring you shame. Nothing new here, but what is new is discovering some new way a person or a company has tried to cheat.

Buyer beware. Do you have any quality stories for us? Please take our quiz this week here.

For safety this week, don't buy inferior quality safety equipment. Do I really need to say this?

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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