Some of you are personally acquainted with my father, Dr. Ernest C. Fitch. Others may know of him by reputation or perhaps through his publications.

His knowledge and vision have been an inspiration to me throughout my career. He is a great mentor and motivator. He is known for the mark he made in the fields of tribology and fluid power. However, in my mind, it was his seminal work in contamination control that most encouraged me to publish this interview. From my observations, the applied knowledge of contamination control in the previous 25 years by hundreds of companies and government agencies has had a far-reaching and lasting impact on machine reliability, more so than any other maintenance initiative during the same period.

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With manufacturers expecting over 1,000,000 product-liability suits annually by 1980, more and more emphasis must be placed on safety and failure prevention. Companies with a poor track record, and which deal with ‘”accident prone” equipment, have little choice if they plan to survive the onslaught of an aroused, safety-minded and suit-conscious public. This paper is the first of a two-part series dealing with safety considerations in fluid-power systems. In this part, a panorama view is presented· of the factors that should motivate the fluidpower industry to take immediate action to ensure that safety is designed into their products. Time is of the essence, and we must get our house in order now.

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Product safety must be our business-not a sideline or an activity that our trade 01: technical association performs for us. As emphasized in Part 1 of this report, with the everchanging public attitudes, climate of the courts, standards being approved, and edicts by the government; this is no time to “stick our heads in the sand.” This paper is oriented toward the fluid-power industry and not only offers a safe product design approach but also attempts to put fluid power-type failures into proper perspective. Specific solutions to critical and inherent problems are presented to taunt and provoke the reader in finding practical answers to save our industry.

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Marketing should play a major role in the design of new fluid power products. The wants, needs and problems of the consumer are many times ignored as important inputs to product design. Without the use of marketing information, products can develop that are not competitive in the marketplace by failing to meet the needs of consumers.

This paper describes the role of marketing in product design and emphasizes the interaction and exchange of ideas between engineering, industrial design, and marketing. Such a market oxiented approach produces products that practically sell themselves. Applying this approach to the design of fluid-power products should have a tremendous, positive effect on the industry as a whole.

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