Although I did not post the “alert” to the left referencing the Miller Harnesses, I have received it several times in the past 2-3 weeks from many SAFTENG members. Each alert I received had a new twist to it and was missing some basic info that Miller had always included in their alerts/stop-use/recall notices in the past, such as a contact person, phone number, and e-mail address. So I decided to call Miller (now a Honeywell company) and ask about this alert. I spoke with Mary Hasson @ Miller/Honeywell and she has provided me with an official response regarding the “safety alert”…
PLEASE NOTE that I am very grateful for all the safety material that I receive each day, but in the past 12 months I have become extremely gun shy of posting many of the “safety alerts” I receive! I literally get dozens of these alerts each week from SAFTENG members and subscribers and although I put these “alerts” at the top of my posting priorities, I now have to scrub them very thoroughly for accuracy. Forwarding an e-mail is one thing, but when I post it on my site, it takes my level of accountability to the next level. Those that have been with me since 2001 may remember the incident that forced me to make SAFTENG.net an LLC and purchase errors and omission insurance (~$3500/year); thus why the site is no longer 100% FREE.
In this line of work, we have opportunities to make some folks unhappy with us and apparently one person was so unhappy with me that in the past 12 months he/she forwarded several false alerts, which I quickly posted. Within the next day I had sales mangers calling me and in a couple of instances I was contacted by company attorneys threatening legal actions regarding these false alerts. I was set up, but I fell for it hook line and sinker. Luckily I keep all of my e-mails from contributors and after a couple of days working with me and the hosting company, the attorneys were convinced my actions were in the interest of safety and I meant no harm to their company and its reputation. Hey, on the bright side, a couple of these attorneys taught me some tricks and some great life lessons in Internet safety protocols; so it was not all bad… at least after I convinced Becky not to shut down SAFTENG.net!!!!
Now for me to even consider posting a “safety alert” the contributor MUST have a GOOD STANDING with me (e.g. I know them professionally or they have proven themselves to be on the up and up with multiple credible contributions), they must have an official company e-mail address (not an AOL, MSN, GMAIL, etc.) that is traceable back to an actual company, the “alert” MUST contain a contact name, phone number and e-mail/street address from someone within the company whose product is listed in the “safety alert”.
Although this alert did have some merit in identifying what to look for in our inspections of these harnesses, it was not a company wide recall and appears to be a very isolated incident. I do not know all the facts regarding the alert or Miller’s response, but I wanted to provide BOTH sides to this “safety alert” and felt that using the “official letter” does that. I AM IN NO WAY ASSOCIATED WITH MILLER or HONEYWELL, I have NOT received any form of compensation for posting this, and I am IN NO WAY ENDORSING their products, but I am a user of their products. I pulled our Miller Harnesses and inspected each one personally to ensure they were not impacted by this issue and I recommend we ALL do this. And as the letter ask, if we find another harness with this defect, REMOVE the harness from service and contact Miller. Sharing this information as a means to bring attention to this inspection need is one thing, creating “unofficial” alerts can get us all in a world of legal hurt!
Click Here to download the official letter in pdf
