"You know what really grinds my gears?" (Part 3)

You know what really grinds my gears? Bad product design, that's what!

Yeah, I know I said that already but it's still hanging around like a bad smell.

Sadly though this is the second product from the same manufacture to have been a let down.

In this case the product was a baby feeding bottle sterilizer from a well know manufacture who is part of a global player in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) and consumer electronics markets.

The problem encountered was the way in which the sterilizer unit held the bottles... not just any old bottles, but bottles from the same manufacture (looks like I'm a gluten for punishment).

The unit was 'design' to hold a number of bottles in an inverted orientation, so the sterilizer could do its black magic sterilizing thingy at its best. To facilitate the positioning of the bottles and aid their inverted orientation, there where six rings a little smaller than the bottle neck opening. The problem was, that these rings had been positioned such that all six bottles wouldn't stand up as they where too close to each other so they either fell over or you could only sterilize three bottles at a time... bit wasteful of the resources and bad for that there greeny type carbon wotsits 'n' environment stuff.

Naturally we took the sterilizer unit back to the shop. I mentioned to the staff... blank expressions ensued. No real surprise to be honest. I returned home and sent an email to the company, outlining the problem, to which I received a rather indifferent and curt reply... oh well.
What amazes me though is that not only did this design error get past design review, got past prototype and got past tooling... it actually ended up in the shops! I think it an insult that a company thinks it can palm off a poorly designed products onto its customers.

But fear ye not... this story has a happy ending.

Yesterday I saw a new improved sterilizer from this manufacture... the problem has been corrected. So whilst I no longer need a baby feeding bottle steriliser as our little fella has out grown the need, I'm happy that at lease this design flaw is sorted out.