If you look around you day to day you can see a lot of examples of reliability testing.

When you are at the hardware store and looking at new power tools, notice which have broken switches, triggers, handles.  Many of us often just think it’s a defective one.  But it’s not.  It’s the weakest model of the bunch.

If all the models were put on display at similar times they have all been going through life cycle testing.  Every person that walks by picks it up and pulls the trigger, flips the switches bangs it around a bit.

It’s getting its life cycle testing done right in front of you. The one with the broken features is the model with the shortest life.  [Read more…]

A term that I use when describing product goals that are tangible and drive program decisions is “Product Asset.”

A Product Asset is “a fundamental attribute of a product that can be characterized as a quantitative measurable goal.”

The five Product Assets that I commonly select are the following:

• technology features
• reliability/quality
• time to market
• product cost
• development program cost (considered an anchor asset)

[Read more…]

Two of the most common acronyms used regarding manufacturing screening processes are ESS and HASS.

ESS stands for “Environmental Stress Screening” and HASS stands for “Highly Accelerated Stress Screening.” [Read more…]

It’s no longer an option to be the strong household name brand in an industry.

You have to expand your technology capabilities to stay in the market.

There are product lines that have had a consistent core technology for long periods of time.

Companies that are leaders in these are “the experts” and they hold maximum market share because the customers know what brand to buy if they want the best.

But if there is a sudden change in the technology, then that “bulletproof” brand name can be tarnished in one product cycle.

What if the core technology suddenly changes to include new electronics or software controls or something we would never have imagined.

The competitors are about to gain market share based on feature add, sometimes “jumped into the future” feature add; The iPad, Tesla electric vehicles, Tesla assisted autonomous driving, smartphone, Solid State memory, automotive electronic fuel injection, jet engines, desktop printer – this is a “Side Swipe”. [Read more…]

Many companies achieve great success based on their ability to create, invent, and develop a technology.

If this is the dominant focus of their product development programs they will maintain a high market share by continuing to be cutting edge.

These industries and technologies are highly competitive with respect to new features and functionality for a period of time, but the growth of any specific technology slows as it matures.

When this occurs, customers begin to put more weight on cost point and reliability when deciding which model or brand to purchase.

[Read more…]

Bulletproof!

It is a very conscious decision to have reliability be a part of your products brand.

What conversations with marketing and the leadership have occurred for your next product development program?

Was there a conscious decision to place your product in a certain range of reliability?

Too many times it’s a discussion that happens as the product is reaching it’s Beta stage of development, “Let’s measure its reliability and see where it’s at and if we need to improve it”.

You can measure reliability that late in the game but you have little opportunity to change it.  So what if it is far lower than the product target market expects?

What if it is far overbuilt and millions of dollars of cost savings were missed in this first generation of the design?

It happens this way more than not. [Read more…]