Dell, Sony Discussed Battery Problem 10 Months Ago 111
InfoWorldMike writes "Dell and Sony knew about and discussed manufacturing problems with Sony-made Lithium-Ion batteries as long as ten months ago, but held off on issuing a recall until those flaws were clearly linked to catastrophic failures causing those batteries to catch fire, a Sony Electronics spokesman said Friday. Spokesman Rick Clancy said the companies had conversations in October 2005 and again in February 2006. As a result of those conversations, Sony made changes to its manufacturing process to minimize the presence and size of the particles in its batteries. However, the company did not recall batteries that it thought might contain the particles because it wasn't clear that they were dangerous, Clancy said. Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden declined to comment on the conversations with Sony in October and February, but told InfoWorld that Dell was 'confident that the manufacturing process at Sony has been changed to address this issue. Now our focus is erring on the side of caution to ensure no more incidents occur.'"
Direct Cause (Score:5, Interesting)
Lies, damn lies, and PR (Score:5, Interesting)
My company made the decision to dump Dell just before this latest fiasco broke. Between regular failures of wireless modules in the D600 laptops, having to replace the motherboards of every one of GX270 desktops (OK, not really Dell's fault that one, but it's their badge up front for management to see) and totally abysmal support we've had enough. From their recent earning reports, I guess we're not alone in that.
How much proof is necessary? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm really hoping there is at least some legal protocol to protect consumer's from things like this that are rushed out the door at the (potential) expense of people's lives, other than class action suits.
Hah!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally I think it's because they've stopped manufacturing their things in Japan. Now it's all about Malaysia or Indonesia or Taiwan or China or something.
Check where things are manufactured, it can tell you a lot about what level quality to expect. Different countries have different cultures and different governments and different labor laws and quality assurance programs and work ethics and wages, etc.
Then again I also can't believe you're starting to think Samsung is looking good. They've improved a lot, thanks to improvements in South Korea itself, but they're still kind of crap and have a long way to go. South Korea used to be one of the WORST countries in as far as quality manufacturing goes, but they've done a lot in the past 5 years or so to try and fix things.
Re:Simple Mathematics (Score:2, Interesting)
"A new car built by my company leave somewhere traveling at 60 miles per hour. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field (A) multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B) then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of the recall, we don't do one."
-- Tyler Durden, Fight Club
I worked at Dell (Score:5, Interesting)
If there are problems with the equipment, those problems are weighed against the overall cost they contain. If Dell determined that their notebooks blew up, they'd have to weigh the odds, the cost of litigation, and the cost of bad press versus the cost of fixing the problem.
The only bad thing about this way of thinking from a business perspective is that economy overrides lesson learned. Dell has had battery recalls more than a few times in the past, and this latest may cement the idea with people that Dell = exploding batteries. But rather than proactively develop test plans and more rigorous standards for their suppliers, they simply look at the bottom line.
Ultimately this has served them well from a cash perspective, but this past year has seen a lot of their karma catch up with them; their process (which is King at Dell) has run out of wiggle room for cost cutting, and bad press like this (combined with the cost to replace those batteries) may start to chip away at their altar of the almighty dollar.
You'd be amazed, though, how myopic quarter to quarter thinking makes a corporation.
Re:How much proof is necessary? (Score:2, Interesting)
You won't find that evidence. Dell didn't know that the things would catch fire because they don't test as well as they should. Their own incompetence would protect them from such a suit.
That doesn't mean it won't be tried. Dell is sued every day of every week for something.
Re:Simple Mathematics (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the original CNN story [cnn.com] that was broadcast/published when the story broke, Sony's Rick Clancy had told the AP that about "a half-dozen or so fires in the United States" had occurred, causing Dell and Sony to study the problem for "more than a month." That's on top of the highly-publicised fire in Japan. Of course, 10 months is more than a month, right?
But the manufacturing defect that's causing the problem would obviously cause such problems. In TFA, a Dan Doughty from Sandia National Labratories describes the condition that occured -- metal flakes causing a short between the anode and cathode -- as causing the battery to discharge ALL of it's energy at once. Now, if you have a laptop manual handy, read the part about where it says how many Watt hours (WHr) the battery holds. A Dell Inspiron 8500 has a 72 WHr battery.
We know that by definition a Watt is the amount of joules/second. So, a 1 Watt hr = 3600 Joules per energy. Now doing the math (3600 * 72) we get 259,200 joules of energy in that Inspiron battery. Keep in mind that there is other heat around the battery as well. Now discharge those 259,200 joules all at once with all that heat around it. Putting that in perspective, a firecracker only discharges about 3900 joules of energy, while a 100g stick of dynamite discharges about 400,000 joules.
<sarcasm> But no, I'm sure they had no idea. </sarcasm>
Re:Hah!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hah!! (Score:2, Interesting)
It made me laugh when I heard, for instance, that there were concerns about Toyotas made in the US (could they possibly be of the same quality as Toyotas made in Japan?). It seemed naive, as one of the key points about mass production is making products out of identical, interchangable, parts and taking the "human element" out of it. We're not talking about hand-made shoes here after all! One part of Toyota lean production methods (Toyota pretty much wrote the book on quality mass production btw) is studying and controlling small variations of your widgets as tool age, and designing products so that mistakes are impossible during assembly (error-proofing), etc.
I still hear comments,even from colleagues (who should know better!), about the quality of stuff made in China -- as if something in the water makes anything manufactured there bound to be of low quality. People still show surprise that quality stuff can come out of Korea (again, I'm not sure what the rationale is, makes me wonder how certain people view the world ).
Japan, early in its industrialization, was also synonymous with cheap low quality crap that'd fall apart if you looked at it funny or that would dissolve in the rain -- funny how perceptions change.
I will guarantee you that a car manufacturer in China building quality designs and manufacturing processes can turn out cars of Toyota quality (and the time can still come and maybe not too far in the future). Ironically enough, all they have to do is embrace Deming and study Toyota manufacturing methods.
If Sony's cutting corners with their quality control then issues like these are bound to come up. But these quality concerns have zero to do with the language of the workfoce.
Re:Of course they knew it was dangerous (Score:2, Interesting)
Either way, if it wasnt for the price and that its hard to get a deal on a desktop without buying the monitor 'package' I would certainly have gone with another brand. First, a monitor company lives and dies by the quality (and price) of the monitor, while Dell sells them by leveraging. Its not 'Darwinian'... Second, if Dell is pushing them so hard they must be extremely profitable, meaning the margins are good, meaning they may spend less in parts than a comparably priced Viewsonic, for instance.
OH! Almost forgot... The newest Dell 19 always autosets its parameters when the computer comes out of sleep or powers on. Its REALLY annoying and it rarely catches the first two pixels on a line. When youve spent 10+ years staring at Windows you might be surprised how out of place the desktop looks with the left two pixels missing. Its the only monitor Ive ever owned that autosets constantly, and I cant find a way to turn it off.
But I have to repeat, Im pretty happy overall with what I got for how little I spent on a moderately loaded Inspiron 3100 + 19" panel. I love my Inspiron 6000 laptop and so does every client that sees it. The base desktop for $270 on sale is damned respectable too.