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I hope you're being sarcastic. I, for one, would have preferred an actual root cause analysis, with all the technical detail. This just feels vaguely patronizin

I hope you're being sarcastic. I, for one, would have preferred an actual root cause analysis, with all the technical detail. This just feels vaguely patronizing, like Samsung expects me to not be able to understand the electrical details. I mean, I get why they're releasing a summary infographic. The fewer details they release, the fewer things they're vulnerable to lawsuits over. But at the same time, I do think that it's important for society as a whole for companies to release the root-cause-analyses when their products have caused harm, so that other companies in the future know exactly what to watch out far and what sorts of designs to avoid. Right now, there's nothing preventing some other phone manufacturer from making the same mistakes as Samsung, with the same results.

Veen 10y ago
Samsumg was communicating with the majority of their customers, not writing a report especially for you, quanticle.
nitrogen 10y ago
I second this, except for the "hope you're being sarcastic" bit. Publicly accessible root cause analysis data could do for consumer electronics and software development what the NTSB has done for aviation. However, it does look like in this case additional data from a few regulatory or quasi-regulatory agencies has been provided (PDF links after the infographic), and the infographic is reasonably detailed.
bigtones 10y ago
The root cause analysis from three different engineering firms is in the linked analyst reports in the footer. Samsung are not being patronising, they're producing content all their affected customers can understand with the infographic, and for those that are more technically inclined or curious - they releasing the technical reports they commissioned in full with all the analysis and findings. You can't fault them for that level of disclosure.
- dfox 10y ago
  Actually, the linked pdf's are presentation slides that do not contain any relevant information that is not in the infographic. On the other hand, on this level there is not much more to say, finding and removing the true root cause (ie. "this process step was badly designed") is problem of the battery manufacturer and not Samsung itself.
  - ryao 10y ago
    Wasn't Samsung one of the battery manufacturers for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7?
owenversteeg 10y ago
I see I'm not alone in downvoting you. Personally, this is because you're just being contrarian and not really adding to the discussion. Deflected electrodes, insufficient insulation tape, and high welding burrs are absolutely fine explanations for what happened here. As someone who works with batteries, that would tell me everything I wanted to know. In this case, the "root causes" are not terribly interesting. The cause for the high weld burrs is that the settings on the welding machines were set wrong. If they said "the settings on the welding machines were set wrong", or the root cause for that ("our battery technicians were incorrectly trained"), that would have been useless. In contrast, this is a fantastic explanation, presented in a very clear way. If I was running a battery fab, I'd be able to check for these problems in 20 minutes. Further in the favor of Samsung is that battery fabs are some of the most opaque places in the world. They never release any information of any value whatsoever to the outside, and there are only a handful in the world. For Samsung to release something like this so candidly is absolutely unprecedented in the world of batteries; I was shocked when I saw the post.

Veen 10y ago

Samsumg was communicating with the majority of their customers, not writing a report especially for you, quanticle.

nitrogen 10y ago

I second this, except for the "hope you're being sarcastic" bit. Publicly accessible root cause analysis data could do for consumer electronics and software development what the NTSB has done for aviation. However, it does look like in this case additional data from a few regulatory or quasi-regulatory agencies has been provided (PDF links after the infographic), and the infographic is reasonably detailed.

bigtones 10y ago

The root cause analysis from three different engineering firms is in the linked analyst reports in the footer. Samsung are not being patronising, they're producing content all their affected customers can understand with the infographic, and for those that are more technically inclined or curious - they releasing the technical reports they commissioned in full with all the analysis and findings. You can't fault them for that level of disclosure.

dfox 10y ago
Actually, the linked pdf's are presentation slides that do not contain any relevant information that is not in the infographic. On the other hand, on this level there is not much more to say, finding and removing the true root cause (ie. "this process step was badly designed") is problem of the battery manufacturer and not Samsung itself.
- ryao 10y ago
  Wasn't Samsung one of the battery manufacturers for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7?

owenversteeg 10y ago

I see I'm not alone in downvoting you. Personally, this is because you're just being contrarian and not really adding to the discussion. Deflected electrodes, insufficient insulation tape, and high welding burrs are absolutely fine explanations for what happened here. As someone who works with batteries, that would tell me everything I wanted to know. In this case, the "root causes" are not terribly interesting. The cause for the high weld burrs is that the settings on the welding machines were set wrong. If they said "the settings on the welding machines were set wrong", or the root cause for that ("our battery technicians were incorrectly trained"), that would have been useless. In contrast, this is a fantastic explanation, presented in a very clear way. If I was running a battery fab, I'd be able to check for these problems in 20 minutes. Further in the favor of Samsung is that battery fabs are some of the most opaque places in the world. They never release any information of any value whatsoever to the outside, and there are only a handful in the world. For Samsung to release something like this so candidly is absolutely unprecedented in the world of batteries; I was shocked when I saw the post.