ABSTRACT
The European multinational company, ITT Europe, was renowned for its rigorous approach to quality, with special emphasis on product safety. This case illustrates what happened when the system was bypassed, leading to the first product recall for a consumer appliance in Belgium. A Belgian company Nova, part of ITT, manufactured a range of domestic appliances including a deep-fat frier called Fritex. The product consisted of an aluminium casting, electrically heated by a separately manufactured element fused into the base of the main body as part of the casting. On 6 January 1976 Nova after-sales received a defective Fritex from a customer. Investigation showed that the heating element had moved in its groove sufficiently to allow one of the ends to contact the aluminium casting. The Fritex failure represented a serious breakdown of the ITT Product Qualification system. There were only two accidents with the Fritex and probably neither was caused by a defective unit.
