14 October 2016

Businesses aspiring to build household names for their products and services subscribe to a set of standards or guidelines which help differentiate their product in market and consistently produce a widely expected level of quality (safety, performance, durability, social norms and environmental well-being). Labelling, certification and test results are among the ways business can show compliance with relevant standards.

In 2011, a famous dried meat producer in Malaysia suffered a severe drop in sales when banned and carcinogenic chemicals were purported to be used in their product. According to the Star (19 February 2015) the Ministry of Health ordered the company to take its dried meat slices off the shelves after tests showed dangerous levels of sodium nitrate.

The International Agency for the Research of Cancer (IARC) has reviewed ingested nitrates and nitrites and classified them as probably carcinogenic (cancer causing) to humans and it could pose risks to those with existing heart conditions.

Dried meat is widely consumed during the lunar New Year in Malaysia. But when concerns about the chemical surfaced, there was almost no sale - people just didn’t buy them that year. The owner and management wanted to turn around the company.

Soon products sold by the company were labelled certified ISO 22000:2005 - food safety management system standard showing how safety and health is taken into consideration when the dried meat is made. The bottom line – sales picked up and trust among their customers were rekindled.

Can a brand be associated with confidence in quality? Not all the time. Consumers who bought a cars from a German made brand were facing tremendous problems with gear box this problem (direct shift gearbox problem or DSG) was prevalent across several models of the brand. Several car owners were left stranded at the road side due to subsequent mechanical problems.

The same brand was bleeding billions in the form of fines after they were discovered cheating on emissions results. The ISO/TS 16949 is a collection of practices for car manufacturers to ensure that the cars they make are safe and perform as intended on the road. Reference to failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA), Production Parts Approval Process (PPAP) and others are critical to ensure that the rubber meets the road with in terms of safety and performance for customers. Then there are also standards for seat belt anchorage, tires and airbags to ensure that they function to protect car users and not kill them like the Takata’s faulty airbags.

Several months ago a Swedish furniture retailer issued recalls of chest drawer set due to fall hazards. Over three years, three deaths were reported linked to falling drawers and most of them falling on children (as these are children furniture). Reports say that over 27 million sets were affected and the company has asked its customers to request for faulty sets to be repaired.

However, consumer protection regulators in several (more advanced countries like Australia) and customers criticize the effectiveness of the repair programme. Critics say that there should have been a total recall of the affected chest drawer sets. The company was adamant not to issue a full recall! The ISO 10393:2013 – Guidance on Product Recall provides best practices and guidelines to organisations like the furniture retailer and car manufacturers alike to carry out effective recalls of potentially unsafe products from the market and implement the necessary corrective action.

The World Standards Day celebration (which falls on Oct 14) anywhere may not stop traffic but it certainly reminds us to reflect on the role of standards in improving our well-being in trade, economy environment and health. Since use or compliance with standards help imbue trust among consumers about a company’s product or services why are there still safety scandals and poor service quality – sometimes at a global scale?
 
In many countries unless compliance is mandatory, businesses do not take standards seriously. Compliance with standards on a voluntary basis is purely driven by the need to increase market share and to gain a competitive advantage. A certification granted for Quality Management System does not necessarily mean that the product is safe or is environment friendly.

Thus regulators in Malaysia must be able to carry out effective market surveillance in order to assess the need for mandatory compliance with available standards – both international and national. They are in the capacity to develop relevant laws calling for mandatory compliance at least where safety is concerned. Compliance with safety standards for playground, drinking water quality, and heavy metals in all types of consumer products, environmentally hazardous substances and labelling of consumer products, recall procedures and risk management must be made mandatory. Regulatory functions or government agencies need to be streamlined to overcome redundancies and inefficiency. The problem with overlapping functions and grey areas are crippling consumer protection in the automobile sector. Weak warranty laws allow automobile makers to get away with rampant disregard for consumer safety and welfare.

We need to fix our consumer protection infrastructure and system in order for consumers to continue to contribute to the economy. Last year consumers in Malaysia lodged over 40,000 complaints with the National Complaints Centre which had a value of over RM 100 million! This erodes confidence and we can develop another 6000 Malaysian Standards and still face the same problem a decade later if we do not fix the consumer protection infrastructure and system.

Happy World Standards Day 2016!

Professor Datuk Dr Marimuthu Nadason
President