In a month where the Irish media has been up in arms about job losses in the high-tech industry, it was with interest (and disappointment) that we noticed a news story over the weekend about 190 job losses in a Wicklow manufacturing company that arose from poor quality information.

It seems that "accounting errors" that only came to light when there was a change of management resulted in the collapse of the firm with multi-million euro debts. According to the Sunday Business Post customers are also affected by this loss as deposits for windows not yet delivered may not be refunded.

All organisational change carries with it the risk of exposing defects in Information or process quality. It may be a change of management or the implementation of a new computing system (such as a CRM system) that exposes the problems but they are there beneath the surface.

From Barings Bank to Enron to overcharging in Financial service to company collapses due to accounting errors the fundamental issue is a failure to manage critical information flows and to view information as a product the production of which can be managed to ensure quality. Properly defined processes, appropriate levels of measurement and control and a robust culture of quality based on continuous improvement manages that risk of critical enterprise failure due to 'duff' data.

Of course that is of little use to the staff and customers of this manufacturing company at this stage.

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