Design flaw
A design flaw is an error in the construction plan of a product. In connection with product liability , the design error is a legal term: "A design error is a product defect that gives rise to contractual or tortious product liability on the part of the manufacturer."
Colloquial language
Colloquially, the term refers to an error in the design of a construction or the failure to observe existing technical knowledge, regardless of whether a product is manufactured in large numbers or for sale.
Uses in the figurative sense are varied, for example for a poorly formulated linguistic sentence or for the effects of natural evolution . Fraught with design flaws is the bad design . The term is also used in a figurative sense in politics and economics.
Delimitations
In technical terms, a distinction is made between design errors, instruction errors (insufficient information for the user) and manufacturing errors (deviation of the product from the plan). As a rule, design defects do not only affect individual products, such as manufacturing defects, but an entire series of products. They already have their cause in planning and development.
A faulty design can arise due to assumptions by the designer or specifications from the customer for the product that do not match the later environmental conditions or the intended use. The threat to operational safety is legally relevant.
Legal Definitions
The liability governs in Germany Product Safety Act , but leaves the definition of the law . While an older judicial view assumed that there was a design defect when a product “does not meet the legitimate expectations of its predictable users”, the more recent case law is based more on the fact that a design defect exists when an existing design alternative has not been chosen could have prevented the damage. According to this view, a design flaw does not only exist if it is faulty, but if it does not correspond to “the latest state of science and technology”.
Impact and Avoidance
In quality management , the rule of ten for error costs states that with each entry into a new product life phase (conception, development, production, delivery) the cost of eliminating an error increases tenfold. A design error can therefore be corrected relatively inexpensively in the design phase, since only the design documents need to be corrected. If it is only noticed during production, existing production facilities may have to be modified. Expensive product recalls may be necessary after delivery . Therefore, an attempt is made to identify construction errors as early as possible.
In the construction phase, for example, design reviews , multiple systematic reviews of the conception or construction by an interdisciplinary team (see Design Review Based on Failure Mode ), and design FMEAs are carried out. Simulations such as strength and flow calculations by means of FEM , circuit simulations , but also tests with models in the wind tunnel aim to confirm the suitability of the construction.
After completion of the construction phase, prototypes or pilot series models that are subjected to realistic stress tests can be used to uncover construction errors before series production begins . Well-known examples are the prototypes in the automotive industry.
example
A well-known example of a design flaw is the first construction of the Tay Bridge : It withstood the normal stresses of railway operations, it was only a violent storm that made it collapse when an express train was crossing it at the same time. The reasons for the collapse were incorrect assumptions in the calculation (by the designers), serious flaws in execution (e.g. the locally manufactured cast iron pillars were partly inadequate) and a lack of consequences during operation (parts of the iron bridge had already fallen off before that, without that the causes were searched).
See also
literature
- Kevin Barrett: Defective Construction Work. Blackwell, Oxford 2008, ISBN 978-0-632-05929-4 .
Web links
- Product safety portal of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health with current examples
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sebastian Lach, Sebastian Polly: Product Safety Act: Guide for Manufacturers and Dealers, Springer, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 66. ISBN 978-3-8349-4145-9 , books.google.at
- ↑ Quoted from: construction errors . In: Legal dictionary on Anwalt24.de
- ↑ Application of the modification incorrect construction related to evolution in a lecture at the University of Cottbus : incorrect construction human - or why did evolution not make us perfect? ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The design flaws of European asylum policy . In: NZZ , July 4, 2015; accessed on July 31, 2015.
- ^ Jürgen Habermas : The construction flaw of the monetary union . In: Blätter für German and international politics , May 2011; accessed on July 31, 2015.
- ↑ Sebastian Lach, Sebastian Polly: Product Safety Act: Guide for manufacturers and dealers. Springer, Wiesbaden 2012, p. 66.
- ^ Siegfried Georg Häberle: Manual for sales law, law enforcement and payment security in foreign trade. Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-25825-7 , pp. 235-236.
- ↑ Carl Otto Bauer u. a. (Ed.): The right to quality. The legal basis of the quality organization. Springer, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-86079-9 , p. 143.
- ↑ a b Ralf Dillerup, Roman Stoi: corporate management . 4th edition. Vahlen, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8006-4593-0 , 8.1 Quality-oriented corporate management, p. 800–805 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
