by Antionette (Toni) Bailey
Editor’s note: This NDT Ethics case study is published in conjunction with the September 2022 issue of Materials Evaluation. Published quarterly, each NDT Ethics column will present a case study and invite readers to respond here on ASNT Pulse with their comments. Readers are also invited to email column editor Toni Bailey with their own ethical scenarios, which may be featured in future columns.
Welcome to a new installment of NDT Ethics. In this month’s column, we will discuss unethical practices regarding the development and administration of qualification examinations for NDT certification. For this article, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kristoffer (Kris) Lance, ASNT NDT Level III (UT) and NAS 410 Level 3.
Lance is a US Navy veteran who served on a fast-attack nuclear submarine based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He entered the NDT field in 2000 and has worked in the oil and gas, power generation, and aerospace industries. Now, at Virgin Galactic, he serves as the Responsible NDT Level 3 (RL3) and Principal Engineer for NDT. In his role as RL3, Lance manages all aspects of the company’s NDT training and certification program. His regular duties include on-site vendor audits; reviewing process specifications, drawings, NDT techniques and reports; and supporting state-of-the-art NDT activities in Mojave, California, and Virgin Galactic’s spaceport near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
Following is a transcript of our interview, edited for space.
—Toni Bailey, NDT Ethics Editor
___
BAILEY: What is your perspective on a proper NDT examination sequence to prevent violations such as cheating on examinations?
LANCE: As a new Level III, there is often no template on how to be the Level III and no direction on how to develop, administer, and grade certification examinations. You cannot totally rely on company training to teach you because sometimes the qualification and certification program is nonexistent. Some companies intentionally violate basic common-sense rules and ethical statutes. At other companies, sometimes questions are pulled directly from the ASNT Q&A booklets and exams are passed by memorization. Often, the same exact exam questions are provided to all candidates.
My advice to others would be:
- If ASNT Q&A questions are used for a questions bank, alter the questions to be different than the published versions.
- Use training software and tools to generate a randomly selected question bank from a large test pool of questions. There are commercial products designed for this.
- Use a security program that prevents candidates from taking screenshots of questions.
- For General examinations, we use a large pool of randomly chosen questions via a computer program.
- For Specific examinations, we use essay responses with references required from the specification. It is recommended to have a few versions of this exam as well.
- For Practical examinations, approve a variety of test parts with different configurations and do not give the same parts to all individuals.
- As the RL3, I proctor all tests to ensure that the exam is administered correctly, no photos are taken, and to ensure candidates are not using their phones or googling answers.
These techniques keep the examination fair and impartial, and also follow the guide of psychometrics. This ensures the candidates actually know the subject rather than memorizing answers.
___
BAILEY: Referring to your recent LinkedIn post (see reference), have you ever experienced unethical examination practices? Give an example of unethical violations you have observed in your career.
LANCE: In the past, I have experienced massive cheating on examinations because people can be given the examinations with the answer keys provided in advance. Memorization of examination questions and rampant cheating can be exercised throughout the NDT program from trainee to Level III. Sometimes the test parts used for the examinations are provided in advance, along with the answer keys and location of the flaws to be detected.
Even though the structure of some examination programs can be flawed, inspectors need to know that they are responsible to do the right thing and the inspector needs to be ethical. Inspectors need to know that their job is important and critical flaws require accurate detection.
Correct examination sequences are the core element used to sustain a quality NDT department.
If people are properly qualified via formal training, hands-on training, and examinations, there is no need to cheat. Avoiding cheating helps a person sleep well at night.
___
BAILEY: Your LinkedIn post also stated “I think we have all worked for companies where certification exams were not taken seriously.” Can you elaborate?
LANCE: My experience with unethical practices has been that management is often the culprit that puts pressure on the Level III to behave this way.
___
BAILEY: Can you give a few examples of management and quality being “complicit” and not taking these examinations seriously? Why this is important?
LANCE: Most of the time when these cheating behaviors occur, management is not only complicit with these unethical practices but usually they are the main drivers of nonethical practices. They turn a blind eye when the truth comes out as well.
Management congratulates and encourages “passing” examinations and meeting goals ahead of schedule. The hard truth is that when the NDT inspectors are underqualified, their lack of capability could lead to catastrophic failure. The product inspected and human safety is on the line, and that is a significant risk.
Those who report nonconformances are sometimes chided for reporting the incidents to HR. HR is supposed to be nonbiased and impartial. However, sometimes HR sees the “whistle blower” as a trouble-making nuisance to the company and they do disclose your confidential conversations to management. This could lead to the “whistle blower” being demoted or losing their job. Therefore, unethical practices truly become a company philosophy that requires an entire culture change to extinguish.
___
BAILEY: Can you offer some advice to the next generation of Level IIs, Level IIIs, and quality managers on the importance of qualification examinations? How we can all do a better job of meeting these requirements correctly?
LANCE: At my current company, quality and compliance is of utmost importance, which was a breath of fresh air for me. It is truly a wonderful experience working in an environment where management’s vision for integrity within the certification program aligns with my own. The pressures of schedules and manpower should have no impact on the certification program.
The certification program cannot be pressured by the needs of production. It has to be a pure QA program, intended to support QA and NDT, and a separate approach from manufacturing, engineering, and production.
I am proud to say that at Virgin Galactic, no level of management has influence on our NDT qualification and certification program. We have the same goals as part of our culture. We all want to have a top-notch, untainted certification program that is designed to do things the right way from the beginning. Our management team encourages us and provides support for that effort. When our people need additional formal and hands-on training, we have the budget, the time/schedule, equipment, and overall training plan to carry out our policies.
There are sacrifices to having an ethical qualification and certification program. If it were easy, everyone would do it the right way and there would be no need for us to have this interview.
___
BAILEY: Overall, having a company that supports ethical behavior has many benefits. What are they?
LANCE: When the certification program is seen as an annoying thing that is bullied by management, employees can become discouraged. This is one reason we lost so many NDT folks during and after COVID-19.
I sleep well at night with no worry of escapes, no worry of catastrophic failure, and peace of mind that we are doing our very best to ensure the safety of products that Virgin Galactic manufactures.
We now ask you, the reader, to evaluate the mentioned questions. Have any of you experienced unethical certification examination practices? What are your thoughts on the questions and answers? We hope this column is helpful to you. We would like to hear from the NDT community. Please comment here.
Editor
Antionette (Toni) Bailey: ASNT NDT Level III/NAS 410 Level 3 (MT, PT, RT, UT, and ET), IRRSP; TB3 NDT Consulting LLC, Manorville, NY; toni@tb3ndt.com
Reference
Lance, K., 2022, “As NDT professionals, I think we have all worked for companies where certification exams were not taken seriously,” LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kristoffer-lance_ernst-young-hit-with-100-million-fine-activity-6947573184141414400-144v
This is a great article. Thans for posting.
I also have a question relating to certifications.
I am a previous level 3 and currently a Quality auditor.
Background: The company I work for employs several level 3’s in several methods (some have certs in 1 method some have multiple) and has delegated them all “responsible” level 3’s allowing them to certify one another per NAS 410.
During a recent AS9100 audit the auditor questioned the certifications of 2 or our level 3’s. Thes particular 2 had certified each other. When we questioned the level 3’s on if this is allowed, they pointed to NAS 410 stating it, doesn’t say we can’t. (The answer was accepted and no corrective action was issued)
Although, I do agree the statements in NAS 410 do not specifically state level 3’s cannot certify one another, I feel this is an ethical concern (or you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours’s scenario) The current level 3’s and quality management felt we are compliant to the current standard and this is a not an issue.
Question 1: Is it acceptable for level 3’s to certify another as long as the testing material used are inaccessible to other inspectors?
Question 2 Is it an acceptable practice to have multiple responsible level 3’s in the same method at the same facility?
Thank You for all you do!
Lindi
There is guidance and direction to grade certification examinations SNT-TC-1A and NAS 410 detail the grades required and guide us on a minimum number of questions for each of the exams. Q&A resource questions are just that, “resources”, for each question in the Q&A probably 5 -10 other questions can be developed from the references. The exam that is the tricky part is the specific. The specific is based on how the candidates company does the NDT process. If your an outside company administering the exam you need to write a new specific tailored for the company. The examiner needs to have access to the NDT process and technical documents to develop a level I and II specific exam.
What is the blog audience advice on this, ” Two parts per method and one pert per technique”? Scenario is an eddy current practical exam, candidate will perform surface eddy current, conductivity, rotating bolt hole and non conductive coating thickness in the candidates company. How many parts is required for a level II practical exam IAW NAS-410? To me it would be 4. Each part would need to have to have a known condition to detect. What say you?
Toni, this publication is very related to my activities in Brazil.
I will share a little about our reality:
– Here the national regulation favors the NDT qualification centralized in the Institute where I work (part of the Brazilian Air Force)
– If, on the one hand, the process is more limited in the diversity of specific situations, on the other hand, the ethical issue is much better. Government departments are not subject to this management influence.
– Regarding the problem of cheating on examinations, we create new questions each year and we provide (during the examinations) all the material for the open book examinations. It is literally impossible for the candidate to have access to these questions before the exams.
– All digital devices are prohibited, even for translation (we use English standards for examinations).
– For practical examinations, we have an average of 10% new samples each year. These always have priority in the application of tests. We schedule the candidates in a way to favor it.
It is worth remembering that our team works mainly with the qualification of personnel, which allows us to make good use of the workforce in these activities!
Excellent publication! This discussion is essential to maintain seriousness in what we do!
Thank you for starting this conversation and giving us all an opportunity to reflect.