SCDigest Editorial Staff

SCDigest Says:

Designers pressured to meet market schedules and compete in the global marketplace means it’s much harder to put enough effort into designing for safety and safe manufacturing than in the days of slower product lifecycles. What do you say? Send us your comments here

A growing number of companies, especially manufacturers, have placed significant emphasis on supply chain risk management. Focus on Risk Management was in fact one of the 10 Supply Chain Megatrends SCDigest identified earlier this year, as the impact of Supply Chain disruptions on brand equity and shareholder value become better understood (See Supply Chain Megatrends, Part 2).

But the seemingly endless saga of the Mattel toy recalls is likely to drive the issue even more deeply into the corporate psyche. But it’s important that manufacturers don’t look and invest too much in reducing the risk of offshore supply relationships (as needed as that is) and short their investment and attention to improving the safety of product design.

Mattel Apologizes for Product Design Lapse

While most of the attention on Mattel has focused on the use of lead paint by a supplier’s supplier, it turns out that the vast majority of the recalled toys were the result of the potential for batteries to fall out and children then swallowing them. 17.4 millions toys were recalled for the battery issues, versus just 2.2 million for the faulty paint jobs.

Mattel’s Thomas A. Debrowski, executive vice president for worldwide operations, was in Beijing last week to repeat what the company had already said elsewhere: that it was sorry for the recall of millions of toys, and that it was doing all it could to prevent further problems.

China’s official news agency jumped on that news, writing that Mattel "apologized personally Friday to a senior Chinese official for the massive recall of Made-in-China toys due to design flaws committed by itself." Other Chinese media sources said Debrowski apologized for harming the reputation of Chinese firms.

Mattel subsequently said some reports of its meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang had been “mischaracterized,” but it is now becoming clear that the vast majority of the suspect toys were recalled from basic design issues, not problems with manufacturing in China.

It seems design issues, in fact, are the overwhelming cause of product recalls. According to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, of the 10 recalls of products manufactured in China over a 2-week period in late July to early August, only one, the Mattel lead paint issue, was clearly due to manufacturing deficiencies.

While the nine others could be manufacturing deficiencies, they appear to be more related to product design issues.

Is Product Design the Real Issue in Recalls?

So while Western manufacturers will rightly increase their scrutiny of potential Chinese and other offshore suppliers and set up more rigorous testing and monitoring processes as a result of these high publicity incidents, it’s important they don’t overlook putting the most emphasis up front – on product designs and design for manufacturing that simply do not pose these fundamental risks.

Rapid Product Lifecycles Play a Role

From electronics to toys, product lifecycles are contracting enormously. This puts tremendous pressure on both product design and the supply chain – and clearly leads to additional supply chain risk.

Designers pressured to meet market schedules and compete in the global marketplace means it’s much harder to put enough effort into designing for safety and safe manufacturing than in the days of slower product lifecycles.

Even Toyota, a paragon of manufacturing quality, said earlier this year that its rising level of quality issues and product recalls were in large part the result of speed-to-market pressures that led designers to take short cuts.

The net result is that manufacturers need to look at quality and supply chain risk not in isolated pieces, but holistically – and not let the current focus on offshoring and China divert attention from the larger risks lurking in product design and cycle time pressure.