Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse.

Oct 17, 17 15:11

Post #1 of 24 (2101 views)

Japan's third-largest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, admitted last week to falsely labeling products supplied to over 500 companies around the world, including the largest automakers.

Potentially defective metals may now be a common component in the airline industry, cars, space rockets and Japan's world-famous bullet trains. At least four percent of aluminum and copper products -- as well as steel -- made and shipped from September 2016 through August 2017 were falsely labelled, it turns out. While that doesn't sound like a lot of metal, the sheer production scale of the steelmaker means those metals could be in many, many cars and other end products.

Kobe Steel apparently lied about data to meet customers' specifications, giving them metals that didn't actually meet those specs. The practice may stretch back 10 years, too.

So, which parts in your car may be defective?

This Japan Metals Scandal Could Impact The Auto Industry And End Catastrophically

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 15:26

Post #2 of 24 (2082 views)

Probably still better than Chinese steel.

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [len] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 15:53

Post #3 of 24 (2062 views)

len wrote:

Probably still better than Chinese steel.

So, we always have that going for us, which is nice. ;-)

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 16:24

Post #4 of 24 (2032 views)

Chuckles

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 17:06

Post #5 of 24 (2004 views)

big kahuna wrote:

Japan's third-largest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, admitted last week to falsely labeling products supplied to over 500 companies around the world, including the largest automakers.

Potentially defective metals may now be a common component in the airline industry, cars, space rockets and Japan's world-famous bullet trains. At least four percent of aluminum and copper products -- as well as steel -- made and shipped from September 2016 through August 2017 were falsely labelled, it turns out. While that doesn't sound like a lot of metal, the sheer production scale of the steelmaker means those metals could be in many, many cars and other end products.

Kobe Steel apparently lied about data to meet customers' specifications, giving them metals that didn't actually meet those specs. The practice may stretch back 10 years, too.

So, which parts in your car may be defective?

This Japan Metals Scandal Could Impact The Auto Industry And End Catastrophically

The next thing you're going to tell me that this is extended it the mislabeling of my Kobe beef too.

.

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [Endo] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 17:08

Post #6 of 24 (1999 views)

Endo wrote:

big kahuna wrote:

Japan's third-largest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, admitted last week to falsely labeling products supplied to over 500 companies around the world, including the largest automakers.

Potentially defective metals may now be a common component in the airline industry, cars, space rockets and Japan's world-famous bullet trains. At least four percent of aluminum and copper products -- as well as steel -- made and shipped from September 2016 through August 2017 were falsely labelled, it turns out. While that doesn't sound like a lot of metal, the sheer production scale of the steelmaker means those metals could be in many, many cars and other end products.

Kobe Steel apparently lied about data to meet customers' specifications, giving them metals that didn't actually meet those specs. The practice may stretch back 10 years, too.

So, which parts in your car may be defective?

This Japan Metals Scandal Could Impact The Auto Industry And End Catastrophically

The next thing you're going to tell me that this is extended it the mislabeling of my Kobe beef too.

.

Exactly!! ;-)

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 17:56

Post #7 of 24 (1962 views)

My company does a lot of work for Nissan in central Mexico and a lot of the materials used in production are directed sources...this will be very interesting to watch play out. This will make the VW emissions scandal seem like a parking ticket.

_____________________
Fester from Detroit, Mi

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [Sideways] [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 21:13

Post #8 of 24 (1893 views)

This has potential to be really bad. Airframes and trains using shoddy metal is potentially really bad and if it is structural buildings bridges etc. could collapse. This was endemic business as usual throughout the company.

Post deleted by spudone [ In reply to ]

Oct 17, 17 22:37

Post #9 of 24 (1882 views)

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [spudone] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 2:05

Post #10 of 24 (1860 views)

spudone wrote:

Good thing that's not the company that makes pressure vessels for reactors.

Say it ain't so! :-(

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [windywave] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 2:08

Post #11 of 24 (1858 views)

windywave wrote:

This has potential to be really bad. Airframes and trains using shoddy metal is potentially really bad and if it is structural buildings bridges etc. could collapse. This was endemic business as usual throughout the company.

In the old days in Japan, company leaders would have publicly and formally apologized. And then committed honorable seppuku.

Sometimes, there's a lot to be said for the good old days.

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [big kahuna] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 5:03

Post #12 of 24 (1816 views)

big kahuna wrote:

Japan's third-largest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, admitted last week to falsely labeling products supplied to over 500 companies around the world, including the largest automakers.

Potentially defective metals may now be a common component in the airline industry, cars, space rockets and Japan's world-famous bullet trains. At least four percent of aluminum and copper products -- as well as steel -- made and shipped from September 2016 through August 2017 were falsely labelled, it turns out. While that doesn't sound like a lot of metal, the sheer production scale of the steelmaker means those metals could be in many, many cars and other end products.

Kobe Steel apparently lied about data to meet customers' specifications, giving them metals that didn't actually meet those specs. The practice may stretch back 10 years, too.

So, which parts in your car may be defective?

This Japan Metals Scandal Could Impact The Auto Industry And End Catastrophically

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [TheRef65] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 5:11

Post #13 of 24 (1813 views)

TheRef65 wrote:

big kahuna wrote:

Japan's third-largest steelmaker, Kobe Steel, admitted last week to falsely labeling products supplied to over 500 companies around the world, including the largest automakers.

Potentially defective metals may now be a common component in the airline industry, cars, space rockets and Japan's world-famous bullet trains. At least four percent of aluminum and copper products -- as well as steel -- made and shipped from September 2016 through August 2017 were falsely labelled, it turns out. While that doesn't sound like a lot of metal, the sheer production scale of the steelmaker means those metals could be in many, many cars and other end products.

Kobe Steel apparently lied about data to meet customers' specifications, giving them metals that didn't actually meet those specs. The practice may stretch back 10 years, too.

So, which parts in your car may be defective?

This Japan Metals Scandal Could Impact The Auto Industry And End Catastrophically

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

I have to say, I've learned more about a host of things just from the knowledge and experiences of the people here in the LR, including this metals scandal, than I have from the major media these last several years. Thanks for bringing up the QC stuff in relation to metals. It sounds very interesting. :-)

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Last edited by: big kahuna: Oct 18, 17 5:12

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [TheRef65] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 7:12

Post #14 of 24 (1746 views)

How well does that work against one off mill runs of unique alloys? We have to PMI (Positive material identification) 316SST some times. We have had chinese stainless have 1/4 of a sheet fail and the rest pass as indicated on the mill cert.

Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [MTBSully] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 8:45

Post #15 of 24 (1713 views)

MTBSully wrote:

How well does that work against one off mill runs of unique alloys? We have to PMI (Positive material identification) 316SST some times. We have had chinese stainless have 1/4 of a sheet fail and the rest pass as indicated on the mill cert.

It will give you a range within the materials properties. The main reason we purchased it was because a distributor shipped us 321 stainless and the certs were to 304. We manufactured a series of parts and shipped them to our customer. As the parts got further down the line, someone had this niton gun and scanned the material. It was in fact, 321 and all of the parts were recalled and we ordered new material and a niton gun the next day. It works within the specific range pretty well. We have had catches of incoming material.

If the material is unique, I'm not sure they would have that in the database but it will still give you the properties.

Here is the gun we have.

https://www.thermofisher.com/...ID=srch-srp-NITONXL5

_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [TheRef65] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 8:51

Post #16 of 24 (1705 views)

I think that will be the issue for this deal, you and I work with common material spec's 304, 316 etc... Some of the metals these guys deal with are specialty alloys made just for them.

I would be willing to bet a lot of it is, vendor wants X product that stray from Y by so little it would be within the margin of error for X so they just tag it as Y.

Pactimo brand ambassador, ask me about promo codes

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [TheRef65] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 8:55

Post #17 of 24 (1699 views)

TheRef65 wrote:

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

Are you in a nuclear power plant?
Niton guns are hand-held XRF devices. They usually require a license from the nuclear regularly body and trained operators.
I'm currently managing a very large environmental remediation project involving metals and radioisotopes and have a team using these for soil sampling to determine heavy metal concentrations (U236, As, Pb, etc.) in the remediated soil

Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [windywave] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 10:35

Post #18 of 24 (1670 views)

How worried should those of us with 2017 toyotas be? (That they got when their Dieselgate car was bought back...)

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [Guffaw] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 12:37

Post #19 of 24 (1623 views)

Guffaw wrote:

TheRef65 wrote:

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

Are you in a nuclear power plant?
Niton guns are hand-held XRF devices. They usually require a license from the nuclear regularly body and trained operators.
I'm currently managing a very large environmental remediation project involving metals and radioisotopes and have a team using these for soil sampling to determine heavy metal concentrations (U236, As, Pb, etc.) in the remediated soil

Aerospace. We manufacture for the large Tier 1 systems providers and to my knowledge, no specific licensing is required. We have standard training techniques established. If anyone knows aerospace, you are required to have documentation for everything.

_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [Sideways] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 17:00

Post #20 of 24 (1574 views)

Sideways wrote:

My company does a lot of work for Nissan in central Mexico and a lot of the materials used in production are directed sources...this will be very interesting to watch play out. This will make the VW emissions scandal seem like a parking ticket.

C'mon, I'm sure they had perfectly valid business reasons for trying to pass off shoddy materials as meeting higher-quality certifications ~ You know, like bigger profits. Funny to see all the pearl-clutching whenever something like this happens, but then in the next breath we complain how all the regulatory oversight trying to get businesses to meet health or safety standards is strangling profitability. Obviously, they can be trusted to do the right thing on their own...

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [TheRef65] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 17:22

Post #21 of 24 (1566 views)

TheRef65 wrote:

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

What about the same alloy but different heat treatment/AMS spec? Can be huge difference in strength and ductility based on the heat treatment yet the chemical composition is the similar.

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [tigermilk] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 17:28

Post #22 of 24 (1563 views)

tigermilk wrote:

TheRef65 wrote:

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

What about the same alloy but different heat treatment/AMS spec? Can be huge difference in strength and ductility based on the heat treatment yet the chemical composition is the similar.

Good point but we do not purchase any materials in the heat treated state so for us this would not be an issue. I'm not really sure about the properties after heat treat.

_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [TheRef65] [ In reply to ]

Oct 18, 17 18:14

Post #23 of 24 (1550 views)

TheRef65 wrote:

tigermilk wrote:

TheRef65 wrote:

My company uses a niton gun that scans each piece of metal we receive. It gives what the chemical properties of the material are and we match them to the specification. I'm not sure how many companies use this equipment but it does help to prevent receiving the wrong materials. We have received materials with incorrect specifications and discovered it by using the niton gun. They are a little expensive but well worth the cost. With equipment like this, I don't know how a company gets away with fraud for so long.

What about the same alloy but different heat treatment/AMS spec? Can be huge difference in strength and ductility based on the heat treatment yet the chemical composition is the similar.

Good point but we do not purchase any materials in the heat treated state so for us this would not be an issue. I'm not really sure about the properties after heat treat.

XRF (X-ray fluorescence) is a non-destructive analytical technique used to determine the elemental composition of materials. XRF analyzers determine the chemistry of a sample by measuring the fluorescent (or secondary) X-ray emitted from a sample when it is excited by a primary X-ray source. XRF analysis, like the Niton gun, will provides no information on structural properties of the material - it sees no difference between a metal that is hardened via uniaxial yield stress and the same metal in its raw, virgin form.

Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

Re: Takata Airbag Recall? Pffffft! The Japan Metals Scandal Could be Much, Much Worse. [tigermilk] [ In reply to ]

Oct 19, 17 1:05

Post #24 of 24 (1519 views)

We used to use rolls of CRCQ 16-24 ga and the only checks beyond basic dimensions that were within our gift was hardness using a gauge for Mohs - bought a killer deal at auction.

We could tell nothing of composition and we supplied DOD sites for Rad Waste and they took mill QC docs at face value

I do recall us having batches of stainless that rusted - that may not have been what they said it was ;)

QCing steel without hardware is difficult

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