Background
(2/14/24) a customer called in after noticing black wires were disconnected from the juncture of several decoders, pictured below, while still in its packaging. An Engineering analysis reveled microscopic bubbles throughout the suspected wire. Bubbles reduce the elasticity in the insulation, causing severe weakening and breakage when the wire is bent. Further visual inspection/ testing confirmed our supplier had unfortunately shipped us a bad batch of solid core wires, which were then potted to our single station decoders. The impact is limited to two SKUs (see below), but does apply to both Baseline and WeatherTRAK.
We have identified all of the shipments impacted and are pro-actively reaching out to all affected customers and distributors. In the event any of these impacted decoders have been installed onsite please follow the playbook below to identify if it meets the correct criteria.
Support Procedure:
Make sure the problem and at least one qualifier match customer's description:
(IMPORTANT NOTE: Do NOT use the word “RECALL” when referring to this program – approved wording for this is “EXCHANGE”)
- Problem Matches: Must be a black wire that easily snaps/ breaks off from a single station decoder when it is twisted into the wire nut during installation.
- SKU Matches: Impacted SKUs BL-5201, WT-5201 (customer- facing name: WT2W-H2O-1VD (not programmed), WT2W-H2O-1VDP (programmed))
- Serial # Matches Decoder serial # should be near or within this range:
- Baseline: D182996 - D189418
- WeatherTRAK: H168898 - H171906
- Date Stamp Matches the date on the black wire is 10/15/2023 (see below).
- Remote Determination: There is no concrete method on the alerting side to validate the decoder is one of the impacted devices. Being that the decoder wire issue is on the 2 -wire path side, we expect to see a 2-wire path short rather than a valve short (which indicates valve-side issue). The alert report will show back-to-back system alerts generated at random within a short time frame (an hour or so). Message will show as station ‘Valve short’ and be captured as design.
- If matches, tell Customer: “Yes, this issue was brought to our attention through one of our customers who noticed their black wire break off from the decoder juncture immediately upon handling. Engineering confirmed a small batch of single station biCoders/ decoders to have microscopic air bubbles in the black, solid core wires insulation. The air bubbles resulted in the protective coating in wire to weaken over time. We isolated the problem to a spool of wire from our supplier. Although we were able to identify the batch and remove the majority from distributor shelves, the defective decoders were from last year (2023) so we we're able to identify those already purchased from use. We apologize for the inconvenience and will of course send out a new decoders/biCoders free of charge.”
- Next steps for exchange are outlined below and will differ based on who the call is coming from.
- End.
- Note: only if the customer specifically asks “did HPDS recall this product?” our response is “The issue did not meet the criticality for a recall as this issue was isolated to a single spool of wire. We did, however, offer immediate product exchange at no charge to our impacted customers and distribution partners. We also took several precautionary measures to mitigate the severity of the issue which included:
- immediately stopping manufacturing to confirm no new orders were impacted.
- stopping order fulfillment with our supplier until full QA evaluation was completed.
- identifying / dating the affected batch serial range. This required manufacturing to review 100% of existing product in stock in order to definitively know how long the issue persisted.
- notifying distributors and offering them to send in their large bin/boxes storing hundreds of decoders into our warehouses so we could manually sift through decoders to find affected ones, thereby unburdening distributors of corrective overhead.
- notifying distributors and requesting distributor receipts (if available) from that time frame to help identify which customers may also have purchased affected decoders.
- reviewal of incoming inspection QA tests to see if we can prevent future incidence.
- alternate sourcing plan proposal.
- these are all standard steps required in our formal corrective action response procedure to ensure an issue like this is rectified.
Steps to initiate a product exchange:
If the call is coming from
- an end customer, issue an RMA via standard process with a return label (it does not matter whether device installed or not, customer in warranty or not, etc.). We want all defective decoders related to this issue returned as we are filing an insurance claim and need to collect majority of units.
- capture all related serial decoder numbers and log them in the support case for tracking/validation
- whenever possible, also obtain photos of each device which show proof of the problem qualifier as outlined in this playbook
- a distributor, send issue to the appropriate Orders Department as it may be part of a larger purchase order they are tracking.
- For WeatherTRAK: orders@hydropoint.com
- For Baseline: orders@baselinesystems.com
DISTRIBUTOR EMAIL
Subject Line: IMPT: Decoder/BiCoder Exchange
