Product Safety Excellence: The Seven Elements Essential for Product Liability Prevention

By Timothy A. Pine

Product safety problems really waste company resources, alienate consumers, frustrate employees, and leave company stakeholders disgusted. It is easy to understand why most consumer product companies are committed to product safety and why they often seem willing to devote even more resources to increase their organization’s safety commitment. Their logic seems to be that this kind of action will result in higher levels of safety performance.

Achieving excellence in product safety is not about seeking more commitment. It is all about understanding what to do and how to do it using the fine organization one already has.

Product Safety Excellence defines the seven vital elements that are essential to achieving state-of-the-art product safety performance with the benefits of product liability prevention, product quality improvement, and higher levels of consumer trust and loyalty.

This book is appropriate for anyone interested in understanding the concepts underlying product safety excellence. It should especially be read by management and technical personnel with a responsibility and/or desire for eliminating product safety problems and improving profitability and consumer loyalty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ASQ Quality Press
• Release date: Jun 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9780873891608

Book preview

Product Safety Excellence

The Seven Elements Essential for Product Liability Prevention

Timothy A. Pine

ASQ Quality Press

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203

© 2012 by ASQ

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pine, Timothy A., 1949–

Product safety excellence : the seven elements essential for

product liability prevention / Timothy A. Pine.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-87389-842-3 (alk. paper)

1. Product safety. 2. Product design. 3. Consumer protection.

4. Products liability. I. Title.

TS175.P56 2012

363.19—dc23

2012013749

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Publisher: William A. Tony

Acquisitions Editor: Matt Meinholz

Project Editor: Paul Daniel O’Mara

Production Administrator: Randall Benson

ASQ Mission: The American Society for Quality advances individual, organizational, and community excellence worldwide through learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange.

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To place orders or to request a free copy of the ASQ Quality Press Publications Catalog, visit our website at http://www.asq.org/quality-press.

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To Pat, a remarkable and lovely wife, friend, patriot, Christian, and mother of our children.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1

Introduction

Excellence vs. Perfection

Invest in Prevention

Design Defects and Recalls

Voluntary and Regulatory Requirements and Recalls

Comprehension vs. Commitment

The Seven Vital Elements

2

Technical Collaboration

Discovering Needed Knowledge

NEISS Information

CPSC Recall History

Trade Associations

Medical Expertise and Academia

Laboratories and Consulting Firms

Partner Supplier Input

Benchmarking and Competition

Summary

3

Concept Evaluation

Early Safety Influence

Hazard Identification Checklists

Energy-Hazard Relationship

Foreseeable Use and Misuse

Human Factors

Technical Collaboration Input

Warning Label Problems

Concept Risk Assessment

4

Design Qualification

Design Review

Safety Checklist

Reliability

Process Capability Analysis

Safety Specification Development

Claim Substantiation

Summary

5

Supplier Qualification

Quality Systems Audit

Management Commitment

Supplier Capabilities and Capacities

Manufacturing Agreement

Change Control

Strategic Partnership

6

Product Qualification

Production Process Documentation

Production-Representative Samples for Test

Testing to Failure

Factor of Safety

Test Documentation

7

Supplier Quality Process

Precontrol and Positrol

Certifications

Error Avoidance (Poka-Yoke)

Performance Metrics and Trends

Management Reviews

8

Strategic Auditing

Auditing Supplier Performance

Consumer Complaints

Defect Analysis

Knowledge Database

Converting Data into Wisdom

Summary

9

Conclusion

Error-Prevention Process

Product Liability Prevention

Product Safety Excellence

Appendix A

Quiz

Appendix B

Answers to the Quiz

Preface

Product safety problems are very damaging to companies, their names, and their brands. They cause injuries, lawsuits, recalls, penalties, complaints, returns, schedule delays, scrap, and rework. They waste company resources, alienate consumers, frustrate employees, and leave company stakeholders disgusted.

It is easy to understand why most consumer product companies are committed to product safety and why they often seem willing to devote even more resources to increase their organization’s safety commitment. Their logic seems to be that this kind of action will result in higher levels of safety performance.

Achieving excellence in product safety is not about seeking more commitment. Most organizations are already very committed to product safety—just ask them. Achieving product safety excellence is all about understanding what to do and how to do it using the fine organization one already has.

Product Safety Excellence defines the seven vital elements that are essential for achieving excellence in product safety, and it describes the tools and processes that make up each element. The application of these seven elements will provide a proven system for ­state-­of-the-art consumer product safety performance with the benefits of product liability prevention, product quality improvement, and higher levels of consumer trust and loyalty.

This book is appropriate for anyone interested in understanding the concepts underlying product safety excellence. It should especially be read by management and technical personnel with a responsibility and/or desire for eliminating product safety problems and improving profitability and consumer loyalty. I have attempted to make Product Safety Excellence concise, clear, and easy to read by anyone with some general business experience or knowledge.

My sincere hope and prayer is that this book will help guide and inspire individuals and organizations toward higher levels of performance and ­state-­of-the-art product safety.

Acknowledgments

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it,

for him it is sin.

—James 4:17 ESV

Product safety information and best practices are really meant to be shared within companies, between companies, and between industries. Promoting safety with this type of sharing is a responsibility of all companies. It is recognized that if one company has a serious product safety failure, it adversely affects, to some extent, all companies in that industry. Sharing best practices, therefore, benefits all companies.

I am truly thankful and appreciative for all of the great companies I have either worked for or been affiliated with that have strongly supported benchmarking and the sharing of information for the purpose of advancing product safety. I am even more thankful for the opportunity to have worked directly with so many excellent individuals to achieve, support, and advance product safety initiatives. There are several in particular whom I must name because of their outstanding support and contributions: Kathrin Belliveau, Sandra Biets, Marty Cahill,

KS Chan, Ken Collins, Scott Crump, Sean Flanagan, Joe Fortino,

Jenny Foster, Jim Hanners, Lindsay Harris, Denis Hogya, William Ip, Ron Jackson, Gary Jones, Jerry Karver, Jill Kashiwagi, Arthur Kazianis, Jim Kipling, John Kraus, Mary Kuo, Dave Mauer, Joe Mendelsohn, Kitty Pilarz, Bill Quinlan, Gerry Remmy, Terri Rogers, Tim Schuh, Daryl Scrivens, Vincent Tam, KL Tsui, Chris Vacca, Fred Virrazzi, Karl Wojahn, and CK Wong.

I especially want to thank Gary Jones, a close friend and highly respected ­longtime associate, for providing valuable and insightful comments on the first draft.

I must also thank Karl Wojahn in particular for the abundance of education, training, mentoring, encouragement, and support he provided me throughout my career. Without it, I never would have been able to write this book.

And finally, a special ­thank-­you goes to Pat Pine, my loving wife, confidante, and life partner, for conscientiously and thoroughly reviewing early drafts and providing brilliant critiques when I know she would have much rather