A total of 234 workers at 11 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. facilities in Japan are suspected of assuming supervisory positions for major engineering projects despite lacking the necessary work experience to do so, the company said Thursday.
The revelation came from an in-house investigation of 624 workers who acquired the qualifications to take supervisory positions based on experience they had reported by themselves, Mitsubishi Heavy said.
The company started looking into the credentials of 624 supervisors after discovering in 2005 that 28 supervisors at its Kobe shipyard had wrongfully obtained their qualifications.
Workers who wish to supervise major engineering projects are required to have a certain level of experience in Japan.
Of the 234 workers in question, some cited work from abroad or claimed to have performed other jobs that were not backed by written evidence, the company said.
"There have been flaws in the way we have processed our documents but we have already rectified that," a Mitsubishi Heavy official said. "We will keep up our efforts to prevent a recurrence of similar offenses."