Case Study: SuperLife Electrode
Challenge
Redesigning an electrode to address warranty failure.
Ionics faced a persistent challenge involving premature failures in a critical component, leading to excessive customer complaints and substantial warranty costs, amounting to over $5 million. The prevailing belief was that these failures were due to a lack of process control in manufacturing.
As the new Quality Manager, CAN-Q Founder Jeff Fontaine was tasked with addressing the ongoing warranty issues.
Process
Research involving in-market product failures and a “wild goose chase.”
A comprehensive manufacturing audit of the entire SuperLife electrode fabrication process was initiated, taking just over two weeks to complete.
The audit served multiple purposes, providing valuable insights into the manufacturing process while fostering direct engagement with facility personnel and the Manufacturing Manager.
During the audit, the Manufacturing Manager candidly remarked that the task was a “wild goose chase.” At the time, this comment left room for interpretation. However, upon completion of the audit, the Manager’s meaning became more clear. Despite the fact that all process procedures were diligently followed, the audit report revealed no findings. It was suggested that the electrode problem might be design-related.
Solution
Investigating a competitor’s electrode.
Despite the suggestion that issues arose from design, months passed without action from the R&D team to address the issue. In this time, it was discovered that a division in the Grand Canary Islands had shifted from purchasing Superlife electrodes to purchasing electrodes from a competitor supplier based in Europe.
As Quality Manager, Jeff purchased an electrode from the Grand Canary Island division for further investigation. A purchase order exceeding €900 was issued, and the competitor’s electrode was shipped to a third-party engineering organization in Rhode Island. Ion beam sputtering, employed for material identification, allowed a solution to be discovered in just eight weeks.
Jeff produced the final report detailing the findings of the investigation, but did not receive any formal response for over two months. A meeting was eventually scheduled with leadership to review findings and determine next steps. This prodding resulted in progress, and one of the PhD chemists assigned to the project revealed that the failure was directly linked to an incorrect substrate preparation formula, leading to failures in the platinum plating process.
Outcome
Quality improvements and millions in cost savings.
Following the revelation that failures arose due to errors within the substrate preparation formula, steps were taken to improve this process and resolve the issues in the platinum plating process. Soon after, Ionics was again producing electrodes that were in keeping with the “SuperLife” moniker.
These quality improvements resulted in the elimination of over $5 million in warranty and reassembly costs and improved customer satisfaction.