Product failure can take place whenever the requirements for a product, or a provisional product, are not achieved through the usual manufacturing method.
Examples include issues like product discoloration, early wear of the product and extreme breakage. Each product specification not meeting the necessary quality levels can be deemed a product failure.
What are the Main Reasons for Failures?
The key reason for product failure is inadequate to control around the various manufacturing inputs, for example, low-quality feedstocks and the manufacturing methods employed. Concessions surrounding the quality of the input material, manufacturing too quickly because of time limitations, and a lack of interim product testing can all show as product failures.
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What Type of Products are Subject to This?
Every product that has measurable specifications (size, color, constitution, etc.) can encounter product failure. Examples of specifications that cannot be quantified are aesthetics or the inherent feel of a product.
What Properties are Tested?
Jordi Labs has carried out property measurements for a broad range of polymer products.
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These measurements include, amongst others, the polymer’s physical attributes, analysis of additives, determination of the molecular weight, and profiling the extractables/ leachables. Jordi Labs can test most properties that are relevant to the failure analysis of polymers.
How Can One Test for the Root Cause of Product Failure?
Through knowledge of product failure, a skilled scientist and engineer can hypothesize many possible failure mechanisms and identify testing approaches to assess these hypotheses.
Statistically substantial measurements should then be employed to detect the underlying root source of failure.
What are the Methodologies Involved?
Many conceptual frameworks are employed to detect hypotheses for failure modes, while real testing is completed using analytical instruments like mass spectrometers, chromatography systems, and thermometric instruments.
The choice of instruments employed is problem-specific and highly reliant on the hypothesized failure mechanisms. After good-bad evaluations or de-formulation, a wide range of analytical methods is accessible for discovering various failure hypotheses.
What Analytical Methods are Then Used to Further Investigate?
While the actual analytical approach used is dependent on how the investigating scientists desire to test their failure hypotheses, Jordi Labs is a leader in numerous analytical testing techniques, including Mass Spectrometry (MS), Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC), Spectroscopy, Elemental Analysis, Microscopy, and thermal and physical analysis.
What Do Jordi Labs Offer for Product Failure Analysis?
An expert Jordi Labs Project Manager can examine specific product malfunctions and leverage the full range of analytical techniques accessible to the scientists.
This information has been sourced, reviewed, and adapted from materials provided by Jordi Labs.
For more information on this source, please visit Jordi Labs.