When your company designs a new product it needs to know how well it will perform for the intended consumer and whether or not it will stand the test of time and still work at least as long if not longer than the warranty period. There are several testing methods available to help you determine this; HALT testing is the best initial testing process available. It was originally developed to help companies who manufactured products for the military create equipment that would last longer and function better in the harsh environments of battle, but is now being used worldwide to create better products. HALT testing is designed to push a product to its failure point by using a series of tests that include extremes of temperature that fluctuate from hot to cold rapidly, severe multiaxis vibrations, and rapid power cycling. This is done to produce conditions that are far more severe than any that the product will ever see in its lifetime and help the designer to see any flaws that might cause the product to fail while it is still in the development phase. By using HALT testing in the development phase the manufacturer can learn at an early stage in a product's development how well it is going to perform. If it fails the HALT test process, they can go back to the drawing board and find a different and better way to design the part that failed.

Often several trips to the testing chamber are required to fully develop a new product. Even though this might seem a little excessive, consider how much more time and money would be lost if a defective product made it into the hands of the consumer before such failures were found. HALT testing is designed to intentionally cause physical damage to a product and cause it to fail. This is done to help the manufacturer determine the margins of product quality and strength so that when they go to manufacture the product they can establish the appropriate quality control standards. By knowing the failure point they can train their manufacturing staff what the acceptable minimum and maximum levels of acceptable workmanship are to ensure that every product they build will stand up to the vigorous use and abuse it will suffer in the hands of the buyer. HALT testing requires the complete cooperation of every member of the manufacturing team from the management to the production worker.

The management must be willing to provide the time and money to make testing possible, the development team will need to be prepared to take the information and act quickly to make the necessary changes before the product goes into production. Finally the production worker must be trained to recognize when the standards established by the HALT test are not being adhered to and report these problems so that changes can be made. If you would like to have everyone in your manufacturing facility trained in the various phases of HALT testing to improve the quality of products you are building let Reliability Help come to your plant and train them. Once your people are trained and you have the proper testing equipment in place you will notice a large shift in profit levels as your product failure rates go down.