The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine is considering a recall system for pressure vessels – the “recall scandal””
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The 2011 National Conference for Pressure Vessel Manufacturers, organized by the China Chemical Equipment Association, was held recently in Ningbo. At the meeting, a responsible official from the Special Equipment Safety Supervision Bureau of the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine revealed that the administration is currently considering a recall system for the design and manufacture of pressure vessels; for defective products, not only must the relevant companies be punished, but those products also need to be recalled, with compensation provided to the users for their losses. Zhang Sheng, president of the China Chemical Equipment Association, noted that in 2010, driven both by market forces and **macroeconomic policies, the chemical equipment manufacturing industry made significant progress in terms of structural adjustment. The industry saw a positive trend characterized by technological advancement, independent innovation, and the development of high-end equipment to support its growth. He believes that the overall economic environment for the chemical equipment manufacturing industry in 2011 was favorable, and the industry faced new market opportunities, which would provide room for growth. At present, developing the high-end equipment manufacturing industry has become a key breakthrough for the chemical equipment manufacturing sector to transition from being large in scale to being strong in quality. To this end, it is essential to focus on industrial upgrading, using the development of high-end equipment manufacturing to boost the overall growth of the equipment manufacturing industry and to provide more effective equipment and service support for emerging industries in various fields. **Wang Xiaolei, director of the Special Equipment Safety Supervision Bureau under the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said that the weaknesses of domestic pressure vessel manufacturing enterprises lie in software and management; the key to enhancing their competitiveness is to strengthen their sense of responsibility as enterprises, which should proactively raise their awareness of quality. Next, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine will focus its supervision of pressure vessel manufacturing on strengthening post-licensing oversight. By conducting random inspections, it will impose stricter penalties on companies with poor management practices, up to the point of revoking their licensing. In addition, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine is considering introducing a recall system for the design and manufacture of pressure vessels; for substandard products, not only must the relevant companies be punished, but those products must also be recalled. Through regular supervision and random inspections, as well as complaints, it is necessary to establish integrity records and blacklists for enterprises.
If that’s the case, equipment manufacturers are under great pressure to ensure product quality. Users will then not be able to purchase devices at low prices, and low-cost bidding will no longer be possible.
There are indeed too many cases where the owner/user wins the bid at a low price, leading to failure; it’s not easy either for manufacturers, as they need an appropriate profit margin in order to produce high-quality equipment. Of course, some manufacturers don’t set clear requirements when issuing tenders, win the bid at a low price, and then ask the client to pay extra later. After all, the owners can’t wait; the overall interests of the project come first, and sometimes there’s no choice but to agree to the manufacturer’s requirements. In fact, there should be an orderly system that ensures reasonable profits and production cycles for manufacturers; at the same time, manufacturers must also take into account the conditions of a market economy, where owners can recover their investment sooner by starting production earlier, thus achieving a win-win situation.