Product liability has a significant impact on the design engineering and safety aspects of a product. As day-to-day products have become more sophisticated and automated, it has become incredibly critical to assess how to make a safe product, identify potential risks associated with product use, and determine how to reduce these risks during the design stage.
This presentation offers an overview of the electrical systems and safety components that constitute a variety of products that are used by consumers. Topics will also include review of standards and design guidelines, an introduction to failure analysis, and a discussion about common root-cause investigation techniques for litigation. Finally, a case study will be presented demonstrating the multi-tier approach to addressing a product liability case from an electrical engineering perspective.
Dr. Lele is a staff member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering practice at Exponent specializing in failure analysis and safety design reviews of electrical and electronic systems. She has expertise in design and quality review of household and commercial products, automotive electronics and industrial systems with a focus on system safety and redundancy.
Dr. Lele's work at Exponent involves extensive battery related research and analyses, root cause investigations and testing of products for accelerated ageing of batteries and other electronic components. Her work also involves hardware and software testing of automotive advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) for conventional, electric and autonomous vehicles such as electronic braking, cruise control, hybrid control and throttle control. She routinely performs field failure analysis, recall-related investigations and is involved in technical consultation for matters related to product liability, trade secrets and class-action lawsuits. On account of her past work experience, she specializes in circuit design, use of electrical laboratory equipment and simulation tools for PCB/IC design, and numerical modelling.
