To: Susan Thompson
From: Shaden Oweis
Date: May 19, 2015
Subject: Takata Airbag Hot Topic Memo The Japanese airbag company known as Takata is one of the biggest airbag suppliers in the world. Over the past decade there have been several reports of their airbag product being “defective.” In the New York Times article “Airbag Recall Widens to 34 Million Cars as Takata Admits Defects”, it is said that the airbags “can explode violently when they deploy, sending shrapnel flying into a cars passenger compartment.” (Ivory/Tabuchi) According to the article, “Six deaths and more than 100 injuries have been linked to the flaw.” The company denied these allegations about the airbags at first, but recently announced that their products indeed have a
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Another marketing concept that is related to this topic is product development. Product development is the process of creating a new product in the market that is technically feasible to produce at low costs, in order to make the final price reasonable. The development of a new product is converted through prototypes. Once a prototype is developed, its functioning must be tested. Performance tests are important for determining if the prototype meets the objectives of the company as well as the safety standards. It seems like the product development stage for Takata’s airbags didn’t go well based on the defects of the product. Takata admitted that old performance tests “uncovered leeks in some of its inflators that could allow moisture to seep in them overtime,” causing the product to be “more susceptible to exploding violently.” What’s more, is that a former company consultant acknowledged the fact that he carried out prototype tests that showed leaks in the
Patricia Mullins and Leta Farley, two of the employees injured in the blast, filed a $60 million lawsuit against multiple companies whom they blamed for the explosion, including Appalachian Heating LLC, ThompsonGas Propane Partners LLC, Ferrellgas Inc., BP America Inc., Little General Store, Inc. and Godfather’s Pizza Inc. In addition to this lawsuit, the numerous safety recommendations made by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board were adopted. The recommendations include the improvement of training requirements for technicians and the improvement of emergency response actions from on-scene technicians and 911 operators.
So the Carbide investigators disproves the theory. Instead Carbide scientists felt the only way that an amount of water sufficient to cause the observed reaction could have entered the tank was through accidental or deliberate connection of a water hose to the piping that led directly into the tank. Carbide investigators then did a thorough interviews with the plant’s employee and careful examination of plant records along with physical evidence led them to conclude that the cause of the gas leak was sabotage by a disgruntled employee who intentionally hooked a water hose to the tank. From here on we can see whether its an employee ill intention to blame for the whole accident or whether the gas tank model was defective in design because its safety standards were lower than similar Carbide plants in the United States. It conclude that Carbide had consciously permitted inadequate safety standards to exist. Indian prosecutors argued that the managers of UCIL were criminally
Market Analysis Product Design Product Design Selection Detailed Product Design Build Prototypes Field Test Prototypes Finalized Product Design Final Manufacturing Process Order Production Equipment Install Production Equipment Celebrate
The Saturate Gas Plant suffered heavy damages as a result of the incident and the explosion. Buildings normally occupied at the Refinery up to 400 metres away from the SGP were badly damaged. Fortunately, there were no people in the direct path of the gas cloud that caught on fire and exploded at the SGP or in the buildings such as the Canteen at the site, which would have been usually
The next step is the growth stage. In this stage product growth is monitored and big investments are made. Maturity stage the growth of the outputs is significant. For the company to ensure product survival in the market and gain a competitive advantage over competitors it has to incorporate product differentiation. The final stage involves product decline stage. In this juncture product sale goes down and the product identification
“On March 23, 2005, at 1:20 pm, the BP Texas City Refinery suffered one of the worst industrial disasters in recent U.S. history. Explosions and fires killed 15 people and injured another 180, alarmed the community, and resulted in financial losses exceeding $1.5 billion.” (U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, 2007) There are many small and big decisions and oversights that led to the incident. Underneath all the specific actions or inaction is a blatant disregard for addressing safety violations and procedures that had been pointed out to BP even years before this event. The use of outdated equipment and budget cuts also contributed to the circumstances that allowed this accident to happen.
After the accident, a full-scale investigation was launched by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). It concluded that the accident was caused by metal fatigue exacerbated by crevice corrosion, the corrosion is exacerbated by the salt water and the age of the aircraft was already 19 years old as the plane operated in a salt water environment.
These conditions led to a smog fog hanging around the area. The American Steel & Wire Co., a subsidiary of the US Steel Group, was the local plant responsible for producing these emissions and conditions. It is also widely accepted that the weather conditions were prominent in producing the disaster. In October of 1998, spokespeople for the industry agreed that the disaster was unfortunate and tragic, but did not fail to note that, at the time of the disaster, clean air acts did not exist. If any good could come from this disaster, it was the funding for research into clean air and the eventual passing of clean air acts and legislation.
However, this vision generates an overlapping problem between the marketing department and the product development department. The marketing department, among other duties, is responsible for the identification of new opportunities and also to assure the development of new products. Unless these activities are extremely well coordinated with the product development department, there will be misalignment in the strategy of the EPD. Ultimately, this misalignment will affect a third department, i.e. the manufacturing department, since it is directly involved in the product development process.
Due to a failure of the vessel’s blowout preventer as the only guard against an explosion, the rig owned by Transocean imploded under numerous problems of maintenance. As dead batteries were investigated to be present inside the blowout preventer alongside defective wiring , BP was not the only company concerned with potential profit loss from acceptable safety standards. In order to maximize revenue generated by the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean officials failed to recall the vessel for maintenance inspection throughout its active nine-years. With BP officials discovering more than three hundred ninety maintenance issues within the Deepwater Horizon rig, the estimated time for such errors to be corrected came out to be approximately three
From November 2009 till 2010, the company recalled about 9 million vehicles worldwide. In March 2014, the company paid a fine $1.2 billion for covering up the the issues of safety behind the recalls.
emerging or new market. It can originate from new technology or new market opportunities (Eliashberg, J., Lilien, G. L., & Rao, V. R. 1997). Literature defines product development as exploiting an untapped market opportunity and turning it into a value product for customer satisfaction. Development and introduction of a new product requires extensive research on understanding customer needs, market structure, emerging trends and analysing the internal & external competitive market environments. To evaluate customer satisfaction previous researches provide strong relationship between customer satisfaction and product quality, product features and value for money. ***
The main challenges in the manufacturing companies are in the following stage of product development.
The Cessna, carrying only the pilot on a cross-country trip and the Sabreliner, contracted by BAE Systems, a military contractor, was transporting four people when the midair crash occurred. BAE Systems confirmed that these employees were on the aircraft. Andrew Swick, National Transportation Safety Board investigator
Product management is a strategic and business-oriented role, which is focused on satisfied and transfer solutions to market needs. The role may consist of product development and product marketing, which are different (yet complementary) efforts,...