Test Like You Fly

摘要

A comment from Gary Delserro, president of Delserro Engineering Solutions, helps to relate testing to reliability: "Beyond the normal specification testing we perform, a growing commercial trend is to help customers develop a plan to test the reliability of a product. We help them design a test plan with quantifiable numbers to estimate a field life."rnHerman Held at Quest Engineering Solutions described noise testing that his company performs, also with an emphasis on reliability, "The combination of audio testing, airflow testing, and thermal imaging with more standard temperature testing gives us the capability to help companies design their products to simultaneously optimize product reliability and minimize audio noise."rnAnd, Trace Labs' Mr. Finch contributed his experience to the discussion of test relevance and product reliability: "Recent trends in environmental testing attempt to incorporate all productrnqualification requirements into a single test. The engineering community is looking for the quick and dirty silver bullet of testing as evidenced by the increased popularity of HALT and kurtosis vibration.rn"Modern testing programs utilize HALT, vibration, and temperature testing to locate gross design flaws. However, no single test can account for all possible failure modes," he continued. "It is imperative to conduct product-specific environmental simulations, which ensure that failures are found due to real-world conditions. The type and severity of the tests depend on the product. When developing a test plan, we consider the product cost and volume, consumer expectations, competition, and potential liability."