Hello from San Diego:
Many thanks to Sean for posting the URL for the
Washington Post article on UL.
While I am notorious as a "UL-basher," I think
the focus of this article is misplaced.
This article presumes that UL puts the safety
into products. Unfortunately, many manufacturers
also believe that UL puts the safety into their
products.
Manufacturers, not UL, are responsible for the
safety of their products.
UL is a certifier. UL certifies that the product
complies with the requirements published in a
standard.
The requirements contained within the standard
for the most part specify protections (i.e.,
safeguards) against specific (and known)
hazardous conditions or situations.
The criticisms leveled against UL represent short-
comings in the standards. Specifically, the
criticisms are that of hazardous conditions or
situations NOT COVERED in the standards. The
article implies that UL is expected to know, IN
ADVANCE OF ANY SAFETY INCIDENT, of any and all
hazardous conditions and situations AND specify
safeguards against those hazardous conditions and
situations.
This is a very difficult and almost impossible
task, especially for UL, since UL does not have
good means of feedback on safety problems.
One wag said, "Safety standards are the inversion
of bad experiences."
This implies that we can't know of safety problems
until an injury or fire is incurred. For many
safety issues, this is indeed the case.
But, the manufacturer almost always gets feedback
on safety problems with his products.
So, the question is: Why don't manufacturers
respond with fixes to their product and with input
to the standards so as to prevent recurrence of
the safety problem? (The article cites several
instances of safety problems where inadequate,
late, or no action was taken to address the safety
problem.)
I suggest that the are several answers. One is
that managers do no like to admit that their
product may have failed to provide the needed
protection. The article describes how we tend to
blame the environment or the failure to follow
instructions, etc., etc.
Another is that product change is expensive,
especially when the competitor may not need to
make the same change.
Within a standards committee, a manufacturer does
not like to admit that he has a safety problem
that needs to be addressed by the standard.
Yet another is that investigations into safety
incidents are often insufficient or inadequate as
to truly identify root cause.
So, I think the focus on UL is misplaced. We,
the manufacturers, should be the focus of the
article. Consider the article as directed to
your safety function!
Best regards, and for my USA colleagues, west wishes
for the Thanksgiving Holiday,
Rich
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