By Chris Nicholls
SYDNEY: Electrolux has denied any link between the closure of its Regency Park dishwasher manufacturing plant in May this year and the quality problems with its current dishwashers.
In a statement, managing director of major appliances for Australia and New Zealand, Trevor Carroll, said the recall was “an unfortunate coincidence”.
He said the dishwasher plant in Solaro, Italy, produced 1.2 million dishwashers a year for 32 brands including Electrolux, AEG-Electrolux and Zanussi and had “an enviable record in quality”.
Carroll claimed the problem was not revealed in factory testing, but repeated regulatory affairs manager Ian Forte’s comments that the company had instigated a new production method.
However, the recall is not the first time the Solaro factory has suffered problems. According to Forte, the factory issued another dishwasher recall in February this year, for a similar problem with wiring harness insulation.
The problem was isolated to machines for the European market, though, and did not affect Australia, he said.
“The European recall was associated with an insulation displacement problem.”
Again, the problem came from a supplier, not the assembly line itself, he said.
“All the examples that they had in Europe were from one supplier, but we don’t use the same supplier for the harness. So it’s become more complicated to find out exactly why we’re getting the problem when they haven’t seen this problem from the same harness supplier in Europe.”