Liability for failed products in employment?

faringdon

Hi,
Today i interviewed at a big company which imports lots of products (of very  widely varying types and various different sectors)  into the UK market from China. The job is to check the products before the order gets placed. The two guys who interviewed me say they have no structured document to fill in to ensure a product is ok...they also tell me they are not of an electrical/electronics background even though most of the products contain electrics/electronics. They just told me they quickly pass products through after a "quick check over".
If i take this job, will i be liable if a massive order of products all fail in the field?
How can whoever owns this company take the risk of importing all this stuff in and not be afraid that masses of product could potentially fail.?
Would i be liable if some products failed?
In the time given to check the product , it wont be possible to ensure  absolutely that the product may fail or not. Only the designer/manufacturer could assure that...and even they could make a mistake.
There was a shower company in UK  that went bust in approx 2014 because 8 years worth of sold product suddenly all failed in the field due to a cold winter...so this sort of thing can happen.
Would i be liable if it did?
I have a degree in Electronics engineering.

BridgetTheCat

Do you mean criminally liable for a breach of consumer safety laws?

If you’re an employee and not an owner or director of the company it’s unlikely you’d be personally liable, however they should have some sort of QA policy and procedures in place.  They’re expected to ‘take all reasonable precautions and exercise all due diligence’ to prevent unsafe products reaching the market.

If you’re worried about civil liability (could I be sued) or internal liability (could I lose my job over this) I’d document any attempt you make to improve the QA system.

gm0

Scapegoat on deck.

It's superficially hard to tell if hiring someone qualified is a good faith attempt to do some QC checking.  Or just personal risk management by the directors.  Ah we are not technically qualified but we hired X to put a system in place.  We were not criminally negligent about safety.......

Yet no tat importer is EVER going to retro fit what should have happened in design or manufacturing.  On safety (actual) or compliance (country specific regs).  Or testing.

So it is NOT going to happen at UK distribution layer.  

In any event a serious attempt to do so would break the business model vs competitors just importing and dumping containers of randomly safe and unsafe tat without checking anything - or drop shipping on amazon marketplace from overseas.

Proposals to spend money on test gear and batch or 100% testing will be quietly rebuffed, silently and without audit trail for preference.  Creating an audit trail of you asking to actually do the job and being told NO - will not endear but is still sensible (for you) if you are working in the scapegoat costume.

It is likely to be frustrating if taken seriously.  And a bit of a paper push non-job if not.  

DullGreyGuy

faringdon said:

Hi,
Today i interviewed at a big company which imports lots of products (of very  widely varying types and various different sectors)  into the UK market from China. The job is to check the products before the order gets placed. The two guys who interviewed me say they have no structured document to fill in to ensure a product is ok...they also tell me they are not of an electrical/electronics background even though most of the products contain electrics/electronics. They just told me they quickly pass products through after a "quick check over".
If i take this job, will i be liable if a massive order of products all fail in the field?
How can whoever owns this company take the risk of importing all this stuff in and not be afraid that masses of product could potentially fail.?
Would i be liable if some products failed?
In the time given to check the product , it wont be possible to ensure  absolutely that the product may fail or not. Only the designer/manufacturer could assure that...and even they could make a mistake.
There was a shower company in UK  that went bust in approx 2014 because 8 years worth of sold product suddenly all failed in the field due to a cold winter...so this sort of thing can happen.
Would i be liable if it did?
I have a degree in Electronics engineering.

Presumably you are going to be an employee? 

Ultimately you would need to read your contract of employment but generally no, you wouldnt be financially liable if you passed a product that subsequently turned out to be defective however they may decide not to pay any discretionary bonuses, pay raises or, at the worst case, decide you arent competent at the job and so let you go. 

faringdon

Thanks, how many companies actually do this "mass importing" of loads and loads of different products from China into the UK market?
I have worked in electronics companies who import products that are specific to their particular sector (only), and they also have some engineering expertise in that sector, eg lighting whatever, so that they can  thoroughly test and properly check that a product that they are middle-manning through isnt going to fail...and thereby cost them loads in product recall.......so i am amazed to hear that there are such things as companies without sector engineering experience who are just middle manning loads of kit through..
Surely they are risking "loosing their shirts"?

I mean, that uk shower company that went bust....all 14 or so directors lost everything. It was 8 years worth of products which got shipped.....probably a million products......and after 8 years, during a cold winter, the fault emerged and took out loads and loads of products......the company went into liquidation..(their name brand still sells because somebody bought it over and corrected the fault and continued selling their product)..so how can people take the risk with So many Chinese products which they know pretty much nothing about........? Surely its just a matter of time before that big product recall happens and puts them into liquidation?.......how many places do this multi-sector importation?...it just sounds like potential commercial suicide.

As i say, i know places that actually operate as engineering design and manufacture places often do Chinese importation of their like4like products...but even they dare not go outside of their own sector of products. (for fear of liquidation in the event of big product failure)  Indeed, the UK D&M function is often only a "token" gesture, so to speak,  but at least it means they have some expertise so as to see if what they are importing from China really is good kit.

When dealing with so many products from so many sectors, its simply impossible for any engineer to garantee that some failure mode won't precipitate after a few years.

Andy_L

"The job is to check the products before the order gets placed"

Check them for safety, compliance with UK standards etc or just check that what's in the box is what's described & that everything that should be in there is in there?

DullGreyGuy

The diversification of goods naturally helps, not all the eggs in one basket. As your example shows, even if you are a mono-line with relevant engineers they can still get it wrong. 

The natural hope is that the margins are such that losses on a poor product will be offset by the success in other products. Obviously it also somewhat depends on how you are selling the products... are they being touted as challengers to Samsung electronics or something cheap and cheerful and ultimately disposable? 

My first job was in a multi-line retailer, I can't say where they sourced all their products from as that wasnt part of my role but as a manager I basically paid cost price + 10% +VAT on any of my staff purchases and had access to the purchasing system which showed me what they were paying for any item, in some cases we had more than one source and so could see (and specify in my order) the differing supplier costs. 

What we sold covered almost everything you can fit in the back of a van for a normal home. Some stuff was properly branded (eg Levis jeans) some was unknown brands (eg Bobbington Jeans) and others were unknowns branded to us. Certainly some of it was poor quality junk but then we were buying cardigans for under £1 and selling them for £20, you can sustain a fairly high return rate and still make a profit with those levels of markup and these in particular were actually ok and so with my staff discount getting me them for c£1.20 it was very good value. 

kinger101

Don't take the job.

You could share the gist if the interview with trading standards or the police, but an investigative journalist might be better.

kinger101

BridgetTheCat said:

Do you mean criminally liable for a breach of consumer safety laws?

If you’re an employee and not an owner or director of the company it’s unlikely you’d be personally liable, however they should have some sort of QA policy and procedures in place.  They’re expected to ‘take all reasonable precautions and exercise all due diligence’ to prevent unsafe products reaching the market.

If you’re worried about civil liability (could I be sued) or internal liability (could I lose my job over this) I’d document any attempt you make to improve the QA system.

If you know you're breaking the law or have reasonable grounds to do so, I don't think you're going to absolve yourself by pointing the finger at your boss.  Particularly when you were doing it for money.