Machinery Breach of Warranty & Contract Dispute Expert Witness
When Industrial Machinery or Automation Fails to Perform as Promised
Many machinery disputes start with one complaint: the machine does not do what the buyer was promised. It runs slower than the quoted rate, produces too much scrap, will not hold tolerance, or stops too often to keep a production line running.
Dr. William S. Howard has spent more than 30 years designing, building and commissioning industrial machinery and automation, including as R&D Director at Kliklok Corp., a packaging machinery manufacturer. He understands both what a specification promises and what a machine can actually deliver, and he works with buyers and sellers, plaintiffs and defendants.
Breach of Warranty
Dr. Howard evaluates whether industrial machinery met the warranties made for it:Express warranty: the rated speed, throughput, accuracy or uptime stated in the quotation, contract or specification sheet.
Implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose: whether the machine suits the use the seller knew it was bought for.
Implied warranty of merchantability: whether the machine is fit for the ordinary purpose of such equipment.
He also assesses whether equipment was nonconforming when delivered, and whether rejection or revocation of acceptance was justified from an engineering standpoint.
Breach of Contract & Failure to Meet Specifications
Dr. Howard compares what was contracted with what was delivered:Reviewing the purchase agreement, specifications, quotations, drawings and change orders.
Evaluating factory acceptance tests (FAT) and site acceptance tests (SAT), and whether their protocols and results were sound.
Testing or analyzing the machine against its specification, on site or from production data.
Determining the cause of a shortfall: design, manufacture, installation and integration, operation and maintenance, or the buyer's own product and materials.
Performance Against Specification
Dr. Howard measures how the machine actually performs and compares it with what was promised:Throughput: rated speed and output versus actual units per minute, hour or shift.
OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness): availability, performance and quality, and which of the three accounts for the shortfall.
Efficiency and uptime: downtime, stoppages, mean time between failures, and changeover time.
Quality and accuracy: scrap and reject rates, yield, tolerance, and fill or weight accuracy.
Whether the specification itself was clear, measurable and achievable.
Typical Disputes
Packaging machinery and packaging lines · Conveyors and material handling · Robotic cells and industrial automation · Custom and special-purpose machinery · Production lines that fail acceptance testing
To discuss a machinery warranty or contract dispute, call (770) 331-2283 or email WSHoward@StabilityTech.com.
