#WEEK 3: RELIABILITY-TEST DOCUMENTATION AND OTHER ITEMS NEEDED FOR RELIABILITY TESTING 2 August 2006

Documentation Test Articles Test Equipment Reliability Test Procedure Test Log Book Failure Reporting Implementing Corrective Action Final Test Report

Test Articles Obtained the test articles/units for a reliability test Sometimes if a new program starts to run behind schedule – there is a delay to deliver the test articles/units for reliability test Will cause bigger problems later on in production (a risk with regards to potential design problems not being discovered quickly)

Test Equipment The unit under test has to be powered by a piece of test equipment while it is undergoing thermal and vibration cycling Usually have a cable/wire harness that is long enough to connect to the unit Have switches that can exercise certain functions on the unit, as well as an automated test sequence that tests the major functions of the unit Problem-test equipment is in demand during the early stages of new product development between engineers and production and software developers

Reliability Test Procedure Will provide a description of the ground rules for the test, including the test setup, how many units are to be tested, the duration of thermal cycling, and how many hours of vibration are to be performed, exact thermal profile and vibration profile, process of failure notification to the customer and failure reports

Test Log Book Documented - Date and time tracking each portion of the thermal profile that is completed, any functional tests completed in the thermal chamber, each thermal cycle and vibration session that is completed, any failures that occur, failure report number Tests are usually halted at the point of failure See example of Fig 4-6

Failure Reporting Failure reports are formally closed when the cause of failure has been identified and the corrective action that was incorporated to prevent reoccurence of the failure in the future Documented all environmental conditions when the failure occurred See example Fig 4-7 All failure reports should be resolved or closed by end of the reliability test

Implementing Corrective Action After a failure occurs during a reliability development test and agreement is reached by all parties involved on what the fix or corrective action should be, the test is allowed to continue with the fix incorporated into the test units in most cases

Implementing Corrective Action The general consensus in this process of incorporating and testing with corrective action implemented is that sufficient test time is accrued to prove out the effectiveness of the corrective action

Final Test Report After completing a reliability test, a summary of the test results along with failure summary and other documentation is provided Typically, most customers require full test documentation be collected during a reliability test

Final Test Report Includes log sheets, thermal charts, and vibration profile printouts to be included with the report, typically in the appendix section Prior to a final test report being written and submitted to the customer as a formal data item, a final failure review is held internally in the company to discuss and close out all failures and action items that occurred during testing