In this digital world, it may be hard for some to believe that there’s still a place for anything manual or physical – especially in the engineering realm. And, while it’s true that today’s technologies have cut into the dependence on physical testing, real-world data remains the lifeblood of the product lifecycle.

From product design to troubleshooting in-service equipment, next generation product planning, and all phases in between, testing remains critical to the design, manufacture, quality, performance, and evolution of virtually all products.

Product Quality Testing

When defective products are allowed to leave the manufacturing facility, the results can be catastrophic. At a minimum, customer complaints and scrap rates are increased; but poor quality can also lead to excessive warranty claims, lost contracts, or even litigation. Quality inspection testing is used at the manufacturing stage to detect structural flaws or to validate conformance to customer specifications before that product leaves the manufacturing floor.

This form of testing provides consistent and objective testing that is rooted in science and replaces manual processes that are open to subjective interpretation. Relying on the judgement of even the most experienced quality inspectors to determine what is acceptable (or not) as products roll off the production line creates opportunity for errors. When human judgment or emotion is at the center results can vary from one inspector to the next or from one day to another.

Subjective Quality Testing

However, removing subjective interpretation from the equation is not always easy. For example, supplier requirements might call for the product to satisfy any number of specific design and performance specifications and be free of other objectionable noises. But how does one quantify what is objectionable?

Fortunately, technology has emerged that allows suppliers to inspect every part that they manufacture to identify flaws and ensure conformance to rigid specifications.

READ MORE: Subjective Quality Testing is Becoming a Thing of the Past

Objective Quality Testing

Quality inspection must be repeatable, consistent, metrics-based, and above all “objective.” Because of this, many suppliers rely on automated end-of-production quality inspection technology from Signalysis to verify that parts are defect free. As a provider of testing systems, the company has built a reputation on detecting product flaws and protecting the reputation of its manufacturing customers.

This thorough, highly technical, and systematic approach begins by gathering customer specifications. This could be anything from specific failure modes – such as ticking in a motor, excessive noise or rattling, modal parameters for rotors or an OEM’s general specification to the non-descript ‘other objectionable noises’ catch-all. The next step is to acquire baseline data on a sample of parts to help quantify and differentiate acceptable from non-acceptable. Ideally these test parts represent the full range for each failure mode including those that do not meet quality standards, borderline parts, and acceptable parts.

Read the entire article here in Power & Motion Magazine.