ARL Featured By Arbin Instruments
Arbin Instruments, a leading global supplier of testing instrumentation for the battery, super capacitor and fuel cell markets, featured our own Austin Reliability Labs (ARL) in their Customer Spotlight piece for their July 2014 newsletter. The profile reached thousands of Arbin contacts and was posted on the Arbin website as well.
ARBIN CUSTOMER HIGHLIGHT: AUSTIN RELIABILITY LABS
“At the ISO accredited Austin Reliability Labs (ARL), reliability engineers work hard to put the products of their clients through the most rigorous tests to ensure quality and reliability. Whether it is a laptop battery, drilling equipment or even a smart rifle scope, ARL partners with each client to determine and carry out a test strategy for a product’s specific applications in predicted environments. As technologies become more advanced and the environments in which they perform become more extreme, ARL offers the most advanced and customized quality and reliability testing.”
Full text from Arbin.com:
Arbin Customer Highlight: Austin Reliability Labs
We have all experienced that suspense of wondering if our gadget just survived the latest drop in the puddle, the intense heat on the dashboard, the coffee spill. We have all rushed to find that cup of rice to dump on the cell phone or keyboard. And we all hope that the companies that put those devices into our precarious hands had the foresight to design and test them to withstand our wear-and-tear. “So what’s the scoop? Have our gadgets become more resilient to our abuse?” you ask.
Speaking with David Rahe, CRE at the ISO accredited Austin Reliability Labs (ARL) recently, he shared that, over the last two decades, he has seen a general trend of a decrease in component related failures. However, in the last couple of years, as our demand for smaller, more powerful and longer lasting gadgets has increased, he has seen an uptick in component failures as temperature and other stresses are affecting the smaller components, especially over the longer expected life spans of products. This makes reliability testing and ARL all the more relevant. At ARL, David and his team of reliability engineers work hard to put the products of their clients through the most rigorous tests to ensure quality and reliability. Clients from oil/gas to medical to consumer electrics industries have all sought out David’s expertise to develop test strategies and analyze test data to improve product designs and product life. And no wonder. With over 20 years of direct experience in the areas of environmental testing and reliability consulting, having served on and chaired IEEE and Military Standards development committees, and authored a number of published papers including the HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Testing) Guideline document that is widely used and globally accepted as the
guiding document for performing HALT, David is a leading expert in the field.
But what truly differentiates ARL from other reliability testing facilities is how close ARL partners with each client to determine and carry out a test strategy for a product’s specific applications in predicted environments. As technologies become more advanced and the environments in which they perform become more extreme, quality and reliability testing must also advance and be customized for each unique technology. For example, as oil and gas companies drill deeper and harder into the earth’s surface, ARL partners with these companies to develop test strategies that help ensure their equipment will withstand extreme environments – reaching operating temperatures of up to 200 degrees Celsius and shocks of up to 4,000g’s. ARL also helps these clients determine if their product can survive on the ocean floor for 20 years, or on a solar panel for 25.
As for those laptops, tablets and other electronics we carry around? Using Arbin battery test systems and other high quality test equipment, David and his team work with companies like Dell, GM, HP and Siemens to ensure the quality and reliability of these products. They have also lent their expertise through training and consulting services not only in the testing phase, but also during the development of the products. In fact, ARL’s engineers and technicians work on a contractual basis inside companies to provide them more staffing flexibility and a knowledge resource to the engineering departments, should the companies need it.
