Late last spring in the May issue, I talked about the scourge of employee theft at our asphalt plants. I think an explanation of how I assisted in identifying these thieves over the years would be helpful to some of you. The root of the problem is that we have cash sales at most plants some people simply cannot resist the temptation to help themselves to part of so much “easy” cash. While most people are honest to the core, some people have a very tenuous grasp on their moral compass and the money is just too tempting.
While some of what I am about to say may seem “Drop-Dead Obvious” to some of us, others overlook these thing so I will lay out how I deal with this threat.
First and most important is keeping accurate records of every component used in your yard. All incoming aggregates need to be accurately inventoried on a daily basis. I have always recommended that accurate daily logs be kept and rectified at the end of each month against outgoing sales. Now I realize that this is a pretty big job at plants that also sell aggregates on top of asphalt, but that is what most thieves are counting on. They hope you will not notice the relatively small quantities that they are stealing.
In addition to tight aggregate inventory control, I also recommend weighing random loads of your incoming aggregates. You will probably never catch a discrepancy, but it demonstrates to your suppliers and employees that you are paying attention to your operations. This perception is a powerful deterrent all by itself.
Another area to pay close attention to is the daily waste at your plant. If operated properly most asphalt plants have only a small amount of Start-Up and Shut-Down waste. This should be recorded on a daily plant report that includes product sold and liquid AC inventory used. By comparing these totals to aggregate inventories and incoming asphalt totals you should be able to rectify the incoming/outgoing totals. Things should match up very closely.
As I said earlier, I recommend that you have a monthly program in place to monitor all incoming and outgoing materials. In addition to these checks I suggest License Plate Cameras on your Hot Mix Load-Out system. This data can be recorded on each truck ticket and used to cross reference the load. One of the tactics used by one of the thieves I caught was to print the last ticket twice while not printing a ticket for the truck that just loaded. With a license plate camera this strategy simply will not work because the load count will be off and you can then look at the license plate number and see which of your customers is colluding with the thief. Remember, it takes two to play this game. A seller and a buyer. Do you really want that guy as a customer if he is willing to cheat you? I wouldn’t.
Another productive way of monitoring operations is to install Control Room Cameras. Make them obvious. Put them places that employees can see them and know they are being watched. The cameras serve two purposes. They record ongoing operations so that you have a fighting chance of spotting shady operations. But perhaps more importantly they demonstrate to all employees that you are paying attention to every aspect of your business. I like to tell clients that this is like a locked closet door. Its purpose for being locked is to keep honest people honest. That lock will not stop a determined thief. But knowing they are being observed keeps most people honest. As I said, the cameras will not stop a dedicated thief, but they will keep the honest people honest.
The last component of your strategy should be “Year-End” accounting. Aggregates are a low return item to steal and make money on. Hot-Mix is where the money is at. One thief I rooted out in the Southeast two years ago was selling about 300 tons a day to his friends for a significant savings. The plant was making 3,000 to 4,000 tons a day so his theft was not obvious until the end of the year when the owner wanted to rectify the AC usage for the year. He used significantly more liquid asphalt than he should have. AC doesn’t evaporate, so we knew that there had to be a reason for the missing oil.
Apathy has been one of the major contributing factors at every plant where I have rooted out theft. In each case the owner was simply too busy or disinterested to pay the appropriate amount of attention to the plant operations that the situation warranted. These guys simply trusted their people too much. But I can understand how they were lulled into complacency. In two cases the thieving employees were direct family members. In another case the thief was pastor of his local church, the same church the owner attended. These facts clearly illustrates to me that we should treat everyone respectfully, but trust no one implicitly.
