The Exploding Washer Edition

Let’s say you make a product, a relatively small item that explodes with such force that airlines are forced to ban them. Of course, this is hypothetical, because, I mean, only a Bond Villain would manufacture millions of exploding for an unsuspecting population, right?

Anyway, our utterly hypothetical company also makes washing machines! Isn’t that cool and they share a common characteristic with the aforementioned hypothetical cell phones – they sometimes explode.

From BBC news –

The firm also faces a suit from a US law firm which alleges that some of its “top-loading washing machines explode in owners’ homes,” leading to potential injury or damage, according to attorney Jason Lichtman.

“Users have reported Samsung top-load washers exploding as early as the day of installation, while other owners have seen their machines explode months or even more than a year after purchase,” the firm said in a statement.

It’s nice to know that if you are going to make mistakes, you might as well make a lot of them and endanger as many consumers as possible.

What’s the business ethics here? Well, most product problems revolve around issues of not working and not being a good value for the money. This is a taking a product defect to the next level, active danger – that is, they explode. I wondered why they didn’t pick this up in testing but discovered that according to Samsung, the real culprit is outside heat. And I understand totally, the idea that people would use cell phones where is was hot was totally unexpected. Obviously people who live near the equator, in tropical countries or in temperate locales experiencing heat waves should know better than to use electronics. For goodness sakes, if you live where it’s hot, get a land line or talk to people face to face.

And obviously, no cell phone is ever kept in a pocket or hot car. So, it’s all the consumer’s fault, just like the washing machines. You see as long as you don’t wash anything heavy in the washing machines, they’re fine but run a comforter or some other heavy object, and they can overheat and malfunction, sometimes exploding. So, Samsung has nothing to worry about and those tiny fragments of shrapnel are probably figments of your imagination.

Good Luck!!

James Pilant

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