Percept Technology Labs Offers Advanced Reliability Testing & Consulting
Independent Test Lab Helps Companies Understand and Improve Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) in Technology Products & Components

Boulder, CO, – November 20, 2007 – Percept Technology Labs (www.percept.com), an established, independent product testing and consulting company specializing in the latest technology products, announced advanced reliability testing and failure analysis capabilities to help companies accurately assess and improve MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rates in electronic products and critical components.  In today’s ultra-competitive electronics product market, customers demand proven product quality and reliability, and companies that cannot deliver, will not survive.

Today’s most successful companies meet market demands for quality by integrating reliability considerations into the entire product design process. This means that reliability is designed into the product right from the start, not patched in later, when problems arise.  An important element of this “design for reliability” process is reliability prediction, which allows firms to accurately predict product failure rates, and make necessary improvements throughout the product life cycle.

Mean Time Between Failure analysis is a valuable methodology that helps companies accurately predict how many hours, on average, a given product will function reliably before experiencing some type of failure.  Percept’s reliability testing team specializes in MTBF analysis.  The team thoroughly reviews a product’s Bill of Material (BOM), leverages a detailed and up-to-date knowledgebase of component design specification data, and then utilizes advanced reliability software modeling, along with real world data, to provide an accurate and unbiased MTBF prediction. 

MTBF delivers powerful benefits to companies by:

1. substantiating a product’s design requirements;
2. identifying reliability drivers;
3. determining appropriate warranty periods and projected costs;
4. comparing the reliability of competitive products; and
5. delivering unbiased data to validate advertising and marketing claims.

To further help companies optimize quality in their products, Percept can prepare a component isolation report, which details the potential failure contribution of each essential component of the design.  This level of insight allows companies to identify possible problem areas and make design or component selection adjustments to improve the quality and reliability of the overall design.  In addition, the Percept team utilizes sophisticated Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) software capabilities to further categorize a component failure’s impact on the overall system operation.  A failure effect hierarchy can then be created to demonstrate the corresponding level of concern associated with each failure.  For instance, a failure in a power supply that would shut the entire system down would be deemed as a very high level of concern, whereas a failure in a display board component that only affects readability, but not operation, would be assigned a lower level of concern.  This detailed analysis enables companies to make intelligent and informed design and component selection decisions that ensure the highest levels of operational efficiency and overall system quality.

According to Mike Wolf, Percept’s lead reliability engineer, “It is vitally important for companies to understand how long their products will perform reliably in the field.  Product reliability is especially important in mission-critical operations, but also for consumers who want assurance that the electronic products they purchase will perform as promised.  Additionally, warranty costs for electronic products can be enormous if various components or design elements do not meet the reliability requirements of the overall design.  Percept’s test engineers have the experience, in-depth knowledge, proven testing methodologies and sophisticated modeling software to determine accurate and unbiased projections for mean-time-between-failure – both on a component level and product level.”

The Percept team is able to determine MTBF for virtually any type of electronic product.  The most recent reliability testing projects have determined MTBF for a wide variety of commercial and consumer electronic products including:

1. a compact military computer for mission-critical applications;
2. an iSCSI storage device optimized to provide high performance, high density data storage;
3. the fastest PC- and MAC-compatible label printer in its class;
4. an aeronautical de-ice distributor;
5. a residential electric meter with unsurpassed accuracy; and
6. a sophisticated data multiplexer.

For more detailed information about Percept’s reliability testing and consulting, please call (303) 444-7480 or visit http://www.percept.com/reliability.php.

About Percept Technology Labs

For more than a decade Percept Technology Labs has delivered independent product testing and consulting to leading data storage, ITE and consumer electronics firms. With years of specialized technology testing experience and absolute commitment to customer care, the Percept team manages the entire product testing, improvement and certification process from start to finish. Percept provides everything clients need to launch and deliver their products around the world — on time and within budget. To learn about Percept's full line of testing and consulting services, visit www.percept.com or call 303-444-7480.

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