The "misstep" of the flagship phone? Another discussion on the cause of the Note 7 battery incident
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According to recent reports, the global recall of Samsung's Note7 mobile phone has been completed for the most part, and will enter the second phase and conduct relevant investigation and finalization work. According to the official announcement released on October 13, Samsung will destroy all Note 7s in the world in an environmentally friendly way after the investigation report is released to be responsible to the majority of Samsung product users and consumers. For a once nearly perfect Android flagship, such an ending is sad, and at the same time, it also makes people wonder what caused the tragedy of Note7? Although the official explanation will be released in a few days, both the "busybodies" in the private sector and some more professional media or institutions have conducted a lot of analysis on the cause of the Note7 accident, and there are also some well-founded "dry goods" among them - please allow the author to go beyond the official disclosure of the mystery and comment on the rumors on the Internet for everyone to see if we can get a glimpse of the truth from them. Design problem or battery defect? I believe that everyone is very clear about the basic performance of the Samsung Note7 accident that is currently circulating : it can basically be summarized as overheating, smoking, swelling, and burning - and it happens regardless of whether the phone is charging or not. Since the initial reputation and sales of Note7 were quite impressive after its launch, various "speculations" and "analysis" about this incident and the subsequent recall have also been rampant on the Internet. Among the various statements, the two that are widely recognized and do make some sense in my personal opinion are the "battery defect theory" and the "compact structure theory". Let's take a look at the reasons for these two "analyses". The "battery defect theory" basically means that the battery used in Samsung Note7 is a new high-density model. Because it is specially designed by the supplier for Note7, its reliability has not been fully verified. There are manufacturing defects at the corners of the battery, which causes the mobile phone battery to short-circuit internally when charging or being squeezed or collided. The "compact structure theory" is also based on the premise that the battery is a new design of the supplier. The only difference is that it mentions that general lithium batteries will expand and deform slightly at high temperatures (such as when charging quickly), so a certain amount of space needs to be left inside the phone, which can also prevent the phone from causing "internal damage" to the battery in the event of a collision. However, due to the front and rear hyperboloid shapes used by Samsung Note7, the internal space on the side is very narrow, and the thickness of the battery has not been optimized in a targeted manner. It is almost full inside and close to the inside of the back panel. In this way, once the phone is squeezed, the thin film electrodes inside the battery may contact each other, causing short circuits, heating and fire. The supplier's fault? But do you know what a supplier is? At first glance, no matter which statement is made, "battery" as a key hidden danger cannot be separated. Then the question is - where does the battery of Note7 come from? Is it "self-produced and sold" by Samsung? Obviously not, here we have to talk about a key factor "supplier". In the current mobile phone industry, apart from Samsung, Apple, HTC, etc., these mobile phone manufacturers are fighting each other on the "table". In order to achieve an actual product, they need a large number of parts or technology providers to "supply ammunition". Take Samsung's own Note7 as an example. Although everyone knows that the screen, storage unit, etc. of Note7 are "Samsung brand", one of the battery suppliers of this accident is also SDI under Samsung Group. However, since everyone is called "Samsung", does it mean that everyone is really "a family"? In fact, it is not! The entire huge Samsung Group includes Samsung C&T, Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung Techwin, Samsung Motors, Samsung Precision Chemicals, Samsung BP Chemicals, Samsung Life, Samsung Electro-Mechanics... Samsung Electronics, which produces mobile phones, and Samsung SDI, which provides batteries for Note7, are just two parts of the huge "system". Rather than saying that they are "brothers", it is better to say that they are just relatively close "colleagues". Whether it is information communication, handover of related parts, or quality inspection, it is actually driven by their own interests. On the well-known online community Zhihu, the author found a table that was allegedly taken from inside the SDI factory. It can be seen that the "Grade B" and "Grade C" batteries that are objectively defective were judged as "qualified" by SDI's quality inspection standards, and were sold to Samsung Electronics (SEC)... Of course, mobile phone manufacturers will still conduct a round of quality inspections after receiving components from suppliers. However, compared with the manufacturers, there is information asymmetry. Samsung Electronics, which is not so familiar with the characteristics of the components, obviously cannot perform the same level of detailed inspections as SDI. It is even more difficult to detect this kind of intentional "pitfall" behavior. Facing information asymmetry, what should downstream manufacturers do? Such selfish behavior caused by "information asymmetry" between suppliers and lower-level manufacturers can easily develop into actual defects in products: Samsung Note7 is just a recent example; looking back, Lenovo's K910 mobile phone was criticized by relevant websites for its low sound quality because its engineers were not familiar with the audio chip provided by supplier Yamaha, which eventually triggered a public relations storm...Even longer ago, Intel's false propaganda of the Pentium 4 processor "harmed" countless PC manufacturers and end consumers, and eventually had to stand up and admit that the entire production line was a "design error" - but what about those computer brands that lost market share or even disappeared because of using this type of processor? They are no longer able to claim compensation from Intel. Since this "information asymmetry" is based on a unilateral advantage in technology, it is difficult for downstream manufacturers to discover such "fraud". In addition, suppliers often get their own payment for parts before the final product is shipped. This incentive makes them not care much about the sales volume of the final product... It is unrealistic to completely fill the technical gap between suppliers and downstream manufacturers, both in terms of cost and necessity. In other words, unilateral strengthening of testing by downstream manufacturers cannot completely eliminate the "cheating" of upstream suppliers. However, taking Samsung Electronics as an example, on the basis of strengthening the quality inspection of parts, by dispersing multiple suppliers, encouraging them to compete with each other, and "linking" the timing of payment for parts with the sales of final products, there is still hope to eliminate similar phenomena in the future. After all, compared with other brands, Samsung, which has higher technical strength and industrial chain advantages, is relatively less dependent on suppliers, and the quality of future products will be easier to strictly control. After the dust settles, the ultimate beneficiaries are consumers . Of course, having said so much, the Samsung Note7 incident is a heavy and full lesson for Samsung. It is estimated that at the official press conference in a few days, someone will definitely come out to bear the relevant responsibilities. However, more importantly, the Note7 incident has sounded the alarm for the entire industry to manage the quality of the supply chain and the importance of "safety" in product design. As a result, we can already see that some manufacturers use "safety" as an important selling point in future products, and this incident has not affected everyone's continued innovation in technology and experience... In any case, after this incident, ordinary consumers can use safer and better consumer-grade devices, isn't it? As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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