It’s difficult to know what is going on behind the doors at Samsung but you can bet their resilience and its kissing cousin agility are being severely tested.

After discovering that their new Galaxy Note 7 (not so) mart phone’s battery caught fire numerous times, they were quick to pull it from the market place. They thought they found the guilty producer and believed they corrected the error that ignited the lithium-ion batteries. Now round two of battery fires have sparked up and they’ve completely stopped production of the phone.

This is a not infrequent issue in manufacturing where the need for quick response often results in a second round of failure. It certainly is understandable, as Samsung’s customers won’t wait more than a few days for a safe device that will allow them to connect back to their world.

Organizations and individuals must have redundant systems in place to make sure that we are protected from potential failure. Biologically, we have two kidneys and two lungs to make sure we have these back up systems in place and in our day-to-day activities, we carry a spare tire in the back of the car. The usual complaint about redundancy is that it costs money to make sure we have the surplus supplies available to us when we need it but as Samsung may discover, their customers may fulfill their redundant need over at the Apple Store.

© Richard Citrin, All rights reserved, 2016