Overriding Concerns of Product Testing

Overriding Concerns of Product Testing

Product testing is the conduction of any of various tests to measure the performance or properties of a product. It can, for instance, be used to verify that a product works correctly and is safe for use by consumers.

Manufacturers may test their own products, or an independent laboratory or government agency may test them, depending on the circumstances.

Types of Product Tests

There are many different types of tests for evaluating various aspects of products:

1. HALT/HASS

A Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT) aims to discover weaknesses in the early phases of a product’s life cycle and is deployed during the design phase or development stage. Highly Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) aims to uncover faults that are caused during production and manufacturing processes. Firms conduct HASS after they’ve already conducted HALT and entered into the production phases.

2. Vibration and Shock

Vibration tests involve applying vibrations at various frequencies to a product, while shock tests involve subjecting a product to sudden, short and high levels of force. These tests assess the product’s reaction to these stimuli. There are a variety of types of vibrations tests, including sine sweeps, random vibration tests and resonance search and dwell tests.

3. ESS Testing

Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) is a term that refers to any of various tests that simulate the environmental conditions a product will be used in, including extreme temperatures, corrosive environments and persistent vibrations. ESS tests include thermal testing and electrodynamic vibration testing.

Accelerated weathering tests simulate the weather conditions that products used outdoors will be exposed to, such as sunlight, moisture and extreme temperatures. Products that typically undergo accelerated weathering testing include automotive parts, construction materials, farming equipment and furniture.

5. Thermal and Humidity Testing

This term refers to various environmental tests of a product’s resistance to humidity and temperature changes. These tests include humidity cycling, high-temperature testing and moisture-resistance testing. They help establish the temperature and moisture limits and uncover the causes of defects.

6. Accelerated Life Cycle Testing

Accelerated life cycle testing stresses a product to uncover faults and failures. Life cycle testing enables the manufacturer to predict the product’s service life and maintenance requirements and offer appropriate guarantees and warranties.

7. Mechanical Endurance Testing

These kinds of tests assess a product’s reaction to repeated stress. They measure the damage this stress will cause over a product’s normal life using forces such as vibrations, shocks and strains. The assessments establish the limits of an item’s use and can help the manufacturer improve its durability.

Uses for Product Testing

Some of the uses of product testing include:

1. Screening Concepts and Designs

Early in the development process, a company may use product testing to test the feasibility of various ideas and designs. Testing can help you to eliminate unsuccessful ideas and choose the best-performing ones.

2. Checking Compliance with Requirements

Sometimes, testing is required to provide verification that an item meets the requirements of a standard, contract or regulation. In the case of regulation, testing is mandatory. It may also be required to win a contract with another firm or to achieve compliance with an industry standard.

3. Establishing Baseline Data for Other Functions

Product testing can provide a baseline for other functions of an organization. The results of these tests may serve as standards for quality assurance checks or engineering guidelines.

Before beginning mass production of a product and putting it on the market, a company may conduct extensive testing to ensure it will perform as expected and serve its intended purpose. These assessments can help a company to catch any flaws before beginning large-scale production or selling it to customers, saving the business money and improving reputation with customers.

5. Ensuring Safety

Product testing is also crucial for ensuring a product is safe for use. Companies are legally required to test many products to ensure compliance with safety requirements, and customers may not purchase some products if they haven’t been tested for safety. In addition to protecting customers, product safety testing protects the manufacturer by reducing liability concerns.

6. Enabling Technical Communication

Companies need the results of product testing to communicate the technical specifications of their product and provide guidance for how to use it. They can use this information in marketing materials, user manuals, training programs, specifications, proposals and more.

7. Forecasting Life Expectancy

Product testing enables companies to accurately predict the life expectancy of their products. This allows them to offer appropriate warranties and other guarantees as well as to market their products appropriately.

8. Providing Evidence for Legal Proceedings

The results of product tests can be used as evidence in various types of legal proceedings, including those related to patents, product liability and advertising claims.

9. Solving Product Problems

If a product is not performing as expected at any stage of the product development process, the company may perform tests to help determine the cause of the problem. The firm can conduct various types of tests on different parts of the product, allowing evaluators to pinpoint the source of the issues and potentially identify ways to solve them.

10. Improving Products and Production Processes

Even if a product is not experiencing problems, testing can help to uncover potential design or manufacturing process improvements that would enhance the product’s performance or reduce production costs. This can help the company to keep up with competition, stand out to customers and improve their bottom line.

Benefits of Product Testing

Companies that test their products, or have a laboratory test them on their behalf, derive substantial benefits from doing so. Some of these benefits, which highlight the importance of product testing, include:

1. Decreased Product Development Time

Testing a product throughout the development cycle can help to reduce time to market by helping to catch faults early. This helps the company avoid having to go back to a previous step to uncover a flaw in the design or production process. The results of product tests can also inform work on the product throughout the later stages of development.

2. Improved Customer Confidence

Customers will have more confidence in a product that has been tested, especially if a third party completed the testing. Testing provides evidence to customers that a product will perform its intended function and do so well. It also provides assurance of a product’s capabilities to investors, third-party partners, standards organizations and other groups.

3. Enhanced Quality and Reliability

Testing a product can help manufacturers to improve its quality and reliability. Testing multiple ideas and designs helps a company to choose the best-performing one, and other types of tests help to uncover and fix flaws to improve reliability. Ultimately, this leads to a better product and more satisfied customers.

4. Reduced Costs

Testing helps firms to fine-tune their designs and production processes to reduce production costs. Catching flaws early in the product development cycle reduces the cost of fixing those defects. Testing a product to ensure quality before sending it to market can help a company avoid excessive warranty payments and potentially legal costs. It may also help to reduce the need for after-sales service.

5. Increased Profitability

Ultimately, product testing can help to improve a firm’s profitability by reducing costs and increasing sales. Product testing may improve sales because including testing results in marketing materials can generate more interest in a product. Enhancing quality and reliability leads to a better product, which may ultimately increase sales.

Stages of Product Testing

1. Requirement Development

First, you must determine what products you are testing and which aspects of the product you’d like to evaluate. The features you’ll need to look at depend on your goals in testing the product.

You also need to choose the standards to which you will compare the results of your test, which will help you to determine whether the product performs its intended function and whether it does so satisfactorily. Sometimes, these requirements will be a part of a regulatory requirement, industry standard or contract. Other times, the manufacturer or test facility will need to establish them themselves. The information you gathered in this step will inform the next step in the process.

2. Test Plan Development

Next, you will need to create a test plan, a document that describes the strategy you will use for testing. This plan will include the scope of the tests, the techniques you will use, the equipment and other resources you need and the schedule of the testing.

It’s best to be as detailed as possible when creating your test plan. You need precise processes and standards to follow to ensure your test is reliable. If you’re conducting a test to verify conformance to a standard, regulatory requirement or contractual requirement, that document may help you in developing your test plan.

3. Testing

Then, you will set up the testing environment according to the product testing guidelines in your plan. Once the testing environment is prepared and the necessary equipment is in place, you will start to run the tests according to your pre-determined strategy.

During the actual testing, it is crucial to follow the test plan exactly. You will also need to monitor the test as needed and document results appropriately so that you can ensure the test is completed accurately and results are reported accurately.

4. Evaluation of Results

After the test, you will assess the test results and report them. You may analyze any failures or performance issues that occurred in the product to determine their cause as well as how to address those causes to improve product performance or prevent product failures in future design iterations. If there were problems with the test itself, you will need to evaluate those issues, adjust your test plan and rerun the evaluation.