RSQ Test Labs | Product Reliability, Safety, and Compliance Testing
Electronics Quality Assurance Program
Sometimes the SMEs and hardware startups that RSQ-Labs works with don’t have a lot of experience in bringing new electronic products to market in a structured way that assures low quality risks. So, in this program, our electronic, process, quality, and reliability engineers become a ‘part of your team,’ offering their support and filling the gaps in your knowledge and ability during the whole of your new product launch project.
What’s included in a typical QA program?
- Document your requirements in a specification sheet, and define a test plan, if that’s not already done. It will be used by the manufacturer and by your inspection team as a checklist, and it should be referred to in your contract with your supplier.
- Review your design files against important imperatives (for quality, for reliability, etc.).
- Think of potential safety failures in more depth, and plan on how to minimize those risks.
- Explain your requirements to the manufacturer, if you feel that’s needed (in case their communication skills and their understanding are poor).
- Collect compliance requirements, and manage those aspects, including testing.
- Collect reliability & durability needs, and prepare a reliability plan (including 1 or several series of tests).
- Audit the assembly factory, and the suppliers of critical components, to qualify their ability to mass-produce at a high quality level.
- Help review and validate the tooling for the enclosure and/or internal parts
- Review of the manufacturer’s risk analysis (e.g. dFMEA and pFMEA), process control plan, and assembly & testing instructions; we point to the major gaps and suggest improvements.
- Design/make checking fixtures, PCBA functional test stations, etc.
- Plan for pilot runs (to validate processes) and be on-site to follow up on issues and their fixing, to confirm production readiness.
- Develop and gather all the parts of the product safety file (“technical dossier”) for assuring compliance.
- Have an English-speaking project manager follow up on progress all along, as needed. (Note: extra costs apply for office work.)
- Once it goes into production, send inspector(s) and report on issues. We keep track of the issues in an Excel file and we can work on corrective actions with the manufacturer.
What does a QA program cost?
Your program will consist of both office work and on-site work in your supplier’s factory. Costs start at 34 USD per hour for office work, and 299 USD per man-day for work in factories (to be confirmed once we know where the factory is located as costs can vary based on location).