Photo 2 Hitoshi Yakabe, a new recruit at the time

I had a sick feeling in my stomach the moment I picked up the phone. It was because the call was from Mr. Yakabe (photo 2), a newly recruited member from the QA Testing Room performing reliability tests. Unlike most new recruits, he had adaptable fighting potential and did very well at his job. And uncharacteristic of him, he was panicking.

"Mr. Usuba. We've got a serious problem here."

Holding back my desire of not really wanting to know, I asked, "What happened?" I felt as if I were going to faint when I heard his answer.

"There's smoke and I mean a lot!"

Apparently, white smoke was blowing out of the device like crazy.

Mr. Yakabe continued, "It's so bizarre, the person from QA is videotaping it as we speak."

Great. After examination, we found that the condenser had failed during the test of applying abnormal voltage, causing vapor to blow out from the device. We had concentrated so much on the quality of VoIP, we had been reluctant to examine other parts in more detail. The thought of the power supply unit going wrong had never crossed our minds. The fact that it was a part unrelated to VoIP, we were caught completely off-guard.

Needless to say, something that emits smoke is hardly worthy as a product. The nationwide shipment schedule has already been set. What had occurred was absolutely unacceptable for the integrator who had finally approved VOICEHUB.