Intermittent failure was due to Thread.sleep in the code. While performing unit test cases there was race condition between two threads, so it was not guaranteed to work every time. Used an interface DelayProvider for simulating delay, and while unit testing fake delay provider is used that eradicates the use of Threads in unit test cases, which is not a good practice.

balking/src/main/java/com/iluwatar/balking/DelayProvider.java

@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+package com.iluwatar.balking;
+
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
+
+/**
+ * An interface to simulate delay while executing some work.
+ */
+public interface DelayProvider {
+  void executeAfterDelay(long interval, TimeUnit timeUnit, Runnable task);
+}

balking/src/main/java/com/iluwatar/balking/WashingMachine.java

@@ -25,17 +25,38 @@ package com.iluwatar.balking;
 import org.slf4j.Logger;
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
 
+import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
+
 /**
  * Washing machine class
  */
 public class WashingMachine {
 
   private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(WashingMachine.class);
-
+  private final DelayProvider delayProvider;
   private WashingMachineState washingMachineState;
 
+  /**
+   * Creates a new instance of WashingMachine
+   */
   public WashingMachine() {
-    washingMachineState = WashingMachineState.ENABLED;
+    this((interval, timeUnit, task) -> {
+      try {
+        Thread.sleep(timeUnit.toMillis(interval));
+      } catch (InterruptedException ie) {
+        ie.printStackTrace();
+      }
+      task.run();
+    });
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Creates a new instance of WashingMachine using provided delayProvider. This constructor is used only for
+   * unit testing purposes.
+   */
+  public WashingMachine(DelayProvider delayProvider) {
+    this.delayProvider = delayProvider;
+    this.washingMachineState = WashingMachineState.ENABLED;
   }
 
   public WashingMachineState getWashingMachineState() {
@@ -56,12 +77,8 @@ public class WashingMachine {
       washingMachineState = WashingMachineState.WASHING;
     }
     LOGGER.info("{}: Doing the washing", Thread.currentThread().getName());
-    try {
-      Thread.sleep(50);
-    } catch (InterruptedException ie) {
-      ie.printStackTrace();
-    }
-    endOfWashing();
+
+    this.delayProvider.executeAfterDelay(50, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, this::endOfWashing);
   }
 
   /**

balking/src/test/java/com/iluwatar/balking/WashingMachineTest.java

@@ -22,11 +22,8 @@
  */
 package com.iluwatar.balking;
 
-import org.junit.jupiter.api.Disabled;
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
 
-import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
-import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
 import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
 
 import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
@@ -36,32 +33,39 @@ import static org.junit.jupiter.api.Assertions.assertEquals;
  */
 public class WashingMachineTest {
 
-  private volatile WashingMachineState machineStateGlobal;
+  private FakeDelayProvider fakeDelayProvider = new FakeDelayProvider();
 
-  @Disabled
   @Test
-  public void wash() throws Exception {
-    WashingMachine washingMachine = new WashingMachine();
-    ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
-    executorService.execute(washingMachine::wash);
-    executorService.execute(() -> {
-      washingMachine.wash();
-      machineStateGlobal = washingMachine.getWashingMachineState();
-    });
-    executorService.shutdown();
-    try {
-      executorService.awaitTermination(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
-    } catch (InterruptedException ie) {
-      ie.printStackTrace();
-    }
+  public void wash() {
+    WashingMachine washingMachine = new WashingMachine(fakeDelayProvider);
+
+    washingMachine.wash();
+    washingMachine.wash();
+
+    WashingMachineState machineStateGlobal = washingMachine.getWashingMachineState();
+
+    fakeDelayProvider.task.run();
+
+    // washing machine remains in washing state
     assertEquals(WashingMachineState.WASHING, machineStateGlobal);
+
+    // washing machine goes back to enabled state
+    assertEquals(WashingMachineState.ENABLED, washingMachine.getWashingMachineState());
   }
 
   @Test
-  public void endOfWashing() throws Exception {
+  public void endOfWashing() {
     WashingMachine washingMachine = new WashingMachine();
     washingMachine.wash();
     assertEquals(WashingMachineState.ENABLED, washingMachine.getWashingMachineState());
   }
 
+  private class FakeDelayProvider implements DelayProvider {
+    private Runnable task;
+
+    @Override
+    public void executeAfterDelay(long interval, TimeUnit timeUnit, Runnable task) {
+      this.task = task;
+    }
+  }
 }