"If I discover that some goods I purchased from China are defective, and I am in the USA or in the UK (as examples), what can I do?" Many people tend to think "let me tell the supplier, and I can return it to them for rework or replacements". However, that's seldom realistic or practical. Let's examine why. … [Read more...]
Investigating the Causes of Product Failure and Improving Design
You conduct reliability tests on your new products. You and your suppliers do product inspections and laboratory tests on mass production orders. Your customers probably give you feedback on the issues they find on what you ship to them. You collect many data this way. You set aside samples that don't pass. But do you learn from this? One of the most important activities is the investigation of the causes of product failure when certain samples fail the inspections/tests or fail in the hands of … [Read more...]