Response to case study scenario 1

If I ever get caught into this situation, I would certainly deal with it, and not ignoring the problem. Below is the elaboration on how am I going to deal with the situation.

First of all, I need to inform this to another engineer staff and tell him/her the situation. The reason that I need to tell someone about this is because as a junior engineer, it is going to be very difficult to convince someone to actually listen to what I am going to say since the lack-of-experience issue might be used against me. Besides, I need a second person to actually see the problem and be analytical and critical about it. At the end of the day, he or she will be the one to back me up and support me before I bring this problem up to the superior.

Then, with that other person with me, I will call up a meeting with the test supervisor again and discuss this problem. The issues that I will bring up in the discussion will be the legal action that could be taken by the customer and the financial consequences caused by the problem. To me, the customer has the right to take any legal action of law suit if they found out the situation. Even though the 3 failed tests is a tiny percentage out of 200 units, it is our job to deliver our products in good condition as the expectation from the customer is really high in our product. This is clearly stated in The Consumer Protection Act 1987 (Product Liability) (Modification) Order 2000 (Statutory Instrument 2000 No. 2771). In terms of financial, this will cause a serious consequence especially if the customer found out about the problem. Not only that we have to spend for legal action purpose when they bring this problem to justice, but at the same time it is going to cost us to refund, or even worse, to do the remanufacture of the product again. This will cause us even more since we have to start the production from the beginning.

Here, I would like to bring an experience of myself when I was completing my industrial placement in a semiconductor manufacturing company 5 years ago. I was placed in the back-end line where testing is done by letting the whole tray of IC chips through the testing machine. As a trainee, I was asked by my supervisor to hold the whole tray if there is a single IC unit that has failed on the testing. The failed IC unit will then be identified and will be kept away as a scrap. Then, the testing process of the same tray will be done again, until there is no test-failed unit left. This shows that the manufacturer is very particular and concern about the quality of their product, especially before they are being delivered.

Lastly, I will ask the testing department to hold back the whole USB units before they are delivered to the customer. I will also suggest to the testing department to gear up and improve the monitoring process of eacjh of the product that are being tested so that non of any of those fail products to be sent. At the same time, promoting the health and safty campaign to the department is crucial and I will do it to prevent serious problems or injuries.

As the conclusion, I am responsible to take action to overcome this problem so that I will not going to happen again in the future. If it happens, I am not just jeopardizing my position as an employee, but I am also putting my company’s prestige at stake.