Audit and the mechanical dish washer
Audit is like washing dirty plates.
Imagine so many dirty plates sitting on the counter which haven’t been washed for months. The kitchen staff leave them until year end for the auditors to wash up. This is because they are not allowed to wash their own plates — they cannot be trusted to do it properly.
The kitchen staff don’t like auditors who apparently judge them based on how dirty the plates are. The head chef is usually friendly though, after all, he needs to ensure that his plates are washed properly.
There is a constant dialogue between the auditor and head chef. The head chef is always concerned that the plates don’t get washed in time, or the auditors find a really dirty plate.
Sometimes the auditor and the Kitchen staff argue about how dirty the plates are. The auditor usually wins though.
The auditor comes in now and then to inspect the plates and review the washing up process guidelines, however they tend to not actually wash the plates until year end. That’s the generally accepted way.
The washing often gets expensive due to the sheer amount of plates to get through, especially for large kitchens. The auditor needs to employ lots of washers.
Some plates are very easy to wash, while others are tougher, such as large saucepans and baking trays. They take ages and it’s easy to miss bits.
Some plates require specialist cleaning which is more expensive. The auditor is required as per the regulations to seek assistance from a specialist cleaner if they cannot do it themselves.
The auditor for the most part, does a good job at washing the plates though every now and then they miss bits.
There are multiple high profile cases where customers were given dirty plates. The kitchen and the auditor can get in big trouble. The auditors tend to have very good solicitors and are used to dealing with claims they didn’t wash off enough dirt.
To combat these claims, a risk based methodology is introduced; wash the greasy pans first and then work on the regular plates. It is hoped that this will ensure the dirtiest plates are cleaned first. After all, as long as most of the dirt is washed off, then they’ll still get paid and no customers will complain.
After the audit, all the cracked plates are discarded — they can’t be used again. Sometimes the head chef and kitchen staff try to put cracked plates back in the cupboard. Skeptical and experienced auditors are good at finding cracked plates though it is not their responsibility to do so. It is accepted that auditors just have to wash plates.
Unfortunately some plates were so dirty they could not be cleaned — they also go in the bin.
If only the auditor had more time to concentrate on the really dirty plates.
The senior auditors come up with a plan — the leveraged model! Why don’t we employ a tonne of University graduates to wash the easy plates. We can get the experienced auditors to inspect the plates that the graduates have washed. This way, we as the senior auditors, can do multiple audits at once and only get involved when there is a really dirty plate to clean.
The auditors are perhaps aware that they could just tell the kitchen staff to invest in developing a mechanical dish washer but they never do! Maybe because they don’t know how and even if they did, the manual way is still very profitable for the auditors. They know that no-one else has the scale to wash so many plates on demand.
The kitchen staff are also skeptical about investing in a machine as it’s expensive and doesn’t help them sell any more meals — what’s the point they think?
If there was a mechanical dish washer then the auditors wouldn’t need so many graduates and the graduates that were still employed could concentrate on the dirtier plates, knowing that the easy plates will be washed. The washing machine also does a better job than a graduate could ever do. It’s much quicker as well.
From the kitchen staff’s perspective, if they had a mechanical dish washer, they could actually wash the plates as they became dirty instead of leaving them until the year end. All the auditor has to do is open the machine at year end and check all the plates are clean. Simple.
What if someone built a really effective washing machine using a shared replicated ledger. It could be offered to kitchens for a really small fee on a per plate basis. Easily low enough such that it makes their audit fee cheaper and reduces their operational costs. The auditor also pays a fee to look inside the machine at the year-end. If the auditor doesn’t pay the fee they will have to buy new plates. They realise this is pointless, so they just pay the fee.
The auditor can actually increase their margins this way, though there is a side effect — revenue decreases as the audit doesn’t take as long. The head auditors realise they have to fire some of the senior and junior auditors. They are smart and already know this, as they’ve all read an academic paper which describes how their profession will be mostly automated in a few decades time.
Now, all but the most awkward plates can be washed by machine.
Click here for further details on the dishwasher.
