More infant deaths, this time not from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), but rather, badly-designed cribs.

According to today's reports: "About 1 million Simplicity and Graco Inc (GGG) cribs are being recalled after three children became entrapped in their cribs and died of suffocation, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Friday. Two infants, a 6-month-old and a 9-month-old, died in the recalled cribs, which were sold through May 2007. A 1-year-old child died in a newer model of the cribs, which has not been recalled but is being investigated by the safety agency, CPSC officials said. In all three deaths, the consumer had installed the drop-rail side of the crib upside down, the CPSC said. This creates a gap in the crib that children can slide into and suffocate. Seven other infants have been entrapped in the cribs, according to the CPSC. There have been 55 reports of the cribs' drop sides detaching or the hardware failing to hold the side to the crib."

How does this happen? Why does this happen? The companies in question are not novices. Guess what...Simplicity Inc., of Reading, Pa., is listed as manufacturer of all the cribs, which were made in China. I think this is another example of an American company losing control of the process and forgetting that our product safety standards are not universal and that developing countries with rapidly expanding industrialization just don't get it.

They can get the work done cheaply and that's it. But they do not have our history or perspective and they certainly do not understand our idea of risk management, liability, and in particular, litigation. A country with a weak judicial system could never understand this. We have many checks and balances that they do not have.

Furthermore as a designer I can tell you that one of the things that we consider as an inherent part of design and risk management in a project is not only how a design might work, but also how it might fail. Where are the weaknesses, where might someone get in trouble from improper use or ignorance? The cribs should have been battle tested by having a group of parents brought into the manufacturer's labs and actually try to assemble the beds independently, with no coaching. This might have brought the design inadequacy to light and saved everyone a lot of heartache.

After all the recent recalls and problems we have witnessed with foreign manufacturing it would be nice to think the alarm bell has been sounded. However, too many people are still not paying attention. They might also be working under conditions where they are afraid to speak up about unsafe products or practices for fear of retribution, or simply because it is not in the cultural psyche to sound off or object to something. This has to change also. Unfortunately, we are probably at the early stages of this crises and it is probably unrealistic to think it is going to end soon.

[Editor's note: The quoted article misleads in that it quotes Graco Inc. (NYSE: GGG) as being responsible for Graco cribs. Graco is a brand of Newell Rubbermaid (NYSE: NWL).]

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Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He is on the advisory board of Internet start-up CircleBuilder.com.