If you are unaware, we pursued the certification of the Ascension harness (now discontinued) with the Center for Pet Safety back in November 2022.
We achieved it momentarily, but some of our actions led the Ascension to be revoked from the program. We will address each of those points further in this blog.
What We Learned From It
As much as it is hard to see so much work thrown away, we have to admit that it led us to evolve as a company. We have changed our processes and goals when it comes to manufacturing. Since May 2023, we have learned that safety products should be developed with huge safety margins. If a 75 lbs dog is estimated to have the load of 1979 pounds-force in a car accident, your product should be able to withstand 3000 lbf+.
Here are some of the things we changed since:
- We changed manufacturers entirely. Moving production out of China to Indonesia where we have full control over the production and quality control.
- The cost to make a Canyon harness is double the cost of the Ascension harness.
- We have changed the material of the buckles from a combination of brass + aluminum alloy 6061 to stainless steel + aluminum alloy 7075. Much stronger for similar weight.
- Changed the buckle design so straps do not need to be doubled-back when using the harness in the car.
- The maximum load of the Ascension was 1979 lbs as tested by Michigan Tech University. The maximum load of the Canyon is 3567 lbs (also tested by Michigan Tech University).
We hope that one day, we will be able to work again with CPS as they see our commitment to constant improvement and learning from our mistakes.
The revocation that happened on May 1st 2023 is due to different factors:
1. Saker’s testing history indicated that they did not have good quality control in their manufacturing.
It is evident now that back in those days, we did not have the structures & processes in place necessary to be a CPS-certified company. We would rely on our manufacturer to implement changes based on crash-test results.
We learned from this and since May 2023, we've changed our processes:
- We do all the parts development in-house in Ohio.
- We test the load of each part individually before installing them on the harness and proceeding with testing the load of the harness.
- Changed manufacturers entirely.
- Moved production from China to Indonesia where we have full control over the production and quality control.
- We have changed the material of the buckles from a combination of brass + aluminum alloy 6061 to stainless steel + aluminum alloy 7075. Much stronger for similar weight.
- Changed the buckle design so straps do not need to be doubled-back to be crash-tested.
- The maximum load of the Ascension was 1979 lbs as tested by Michigan Tech University. The maximum load of the Canyon was 3567 lbs also tested by Michigan Tech University.
2. Saker failed to send us production samples required by the contract.
This goes back to February 2023. According to the contract between Säker and Center for Pet Safety, Säker had to send the first bulk production samples to CPS. Säker failed to do so and only shipped units later. Säker takes the entire responsability for this mistake.
3. Saker modified their hardware and did not disclose that to CPS. That’s something they were contractually required to do.
As you might know if you were part of the Kickstarter campaign, the first buckles of the Ascension had an issue where they could be released by pressing one side. This was unacceptable. Both CPS and us failed to notice this issue. We were so focused on improving the buckles maximum load.
4. Saker failed to inform us about the issue with the buckle – we found out about it from a consumer. Saker was contractually required to notify us.
Everything, from uncovering the buckle issue to customers reaching out to Center for Pet Safety happened over the course of a weekend. By Monday, CPS had reached out to us as we were just testing our products to see how wide-spread was the issue. We had just learned about this issue.
But yes, we were not the ones reaching out to CPS first.
5. We agreed to a remediation plan specified by Saker, however the remediated product samples failed multiple retests. The failure points were inconsistent (buckles and/or adjustment hardware failed) on multiple retests.
Through the process of developing new buckles that would not be affected by the accidental-release issue, Säker had to proceed to retests through CPS.
There was one round of tests in April 2023 that failed. Säker went on to develop new parts that would succeeded those tests.
The final hardware of the M-L and XL-XXL passed the test in front of CPS in early May, because CPS remains the owner of this footage, those tests cannot be shared to the public.
This is why Säker has since then conducted tests with Calspan. Those tests resulted in a 5-stars result. You can watch the footage here.
6. We were contacted by consumers who shared screenshots of messages shared via their social media postings stating that they were shipping new hardware. (The hardware they referred to failed testing a few days before the date of that posting.) We reached out to the company owner, and he confirmed in writing that the postings were not true.
The dates here are not correct, but the facts are. We did want to send parts that did not complete tests to our customers as they had waited long enough. Here are the details:
We had to remanufacture more parts to make the harness compliant. While waiting for the new parts to be tested, the social media manager at Säker did a post in their Facebook group saying that they would start to ship the replacement parts and bare the risks of a failed test because customers had waited long enough. Through that, Säker was taking the risks to have to pay for shipping twice if the tests failed again. In the eventuality of a failed test, we would have to develop new parts again, pass the tests and send this hardware again.
*Important notice: No harnesses were actually shipped until the re-tests were succesfully completed.
In the end
Since then, Säker has done all the tests again through Calspan facilities and have got a 5-stars result. The test standards (load, speed, excursion, etc.) for the CPS tests and the Calspan tests are the same.
