January's Ask the Experts guest speaker, Dr. Edmond Kyser, discussed the return on investment for HALT and HASS - an in-demand topic based on audience turnout and recording replay.

Dr. Kyser explained how to calculate some of the hard costs and returns for your HALT/HASS program.

Keep in mind, however, that some the biggest benefits of accelerated stress testing are hard-to-calculate intangibles such as competitive advantage, faster release of new product and, most importantly, establishing consumer mind set of brand quality.

Click here to view the replay: Return on Investment - HALT/HASS.

As the leader in HALT and HASS testing, Qualmark offers seminars, webinars, white papers, training, and consulting services to assist you in developing the fastest return on investment for your accelerated stress test reliability program.

If you'd like assistance in developing an ROI for your program, contact Qualmark. 

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ross Atwood as Director of Service, a new position recently added to the Qualmark management team. Ross brings extensive experience in delivering global service to industrial and commercial customers, starting with GE's management training program, and most recently, Plasmon LMS. Ross will direct service initiatives for Qualmark's customers, partners and distributors by streamlining processes and investing in tools and training to improve customer support procedures, technical support and field services.

Ross, who has just returned following 3 weeks of meeting Qualmark customers, distributors and test facilities throughout Europe and Asia, comments, "It is exciting to be with a company whose mission is to help customers build better quality products. I've seen and dealt with firsthand the experience and expense brought about by product failures. Qualmark offers a solution that not only improves products and customer experience, but also improves profitability."

Other Qualmark Promotions

Ross' appointment rounds out the Qualmark management team which includes the recent promotion of Carol Drake, a 12-year Qualmark veteran, to Vice President of Engineering and Mark Feero, formerly Qualmark's engineering services and documentation control manager, who has been promoted to Director of Operations.

Qualmark distributor, TOYO Corporation (www.toyo.co.jp) recently hosted a 1 day seminar at their HALT Technical center in Atsugi, Japan, a prominent research hub.  Top reliability engineers from leading Japanese electronics companies were in attendance.  Led by TOYO's senior HALT engineer, the group learned advanced best practices surrounding key HALT techniques including System operation, sensor technology, fixturing, LN2 considerations, Profile development, and test documentation.  The hands-on experience and knowledge sharing among the attendees prompted the instant formation of the first Qualmark user group in Japan.  TOYO will offer future HALT customer training sessions.  If interested, please contact TOYO at halt@toyo.co.jp.

The development and propagation of HALT throughout the electronics industry has provided engineering teams a powerful tool to assess robustness early in the design process.  However, to take full advantage of HALT testing, failure analysis is necessary to identify root cause. Without root cause analysis, the investment in HALT testing is not being maximized.  This presentation will review the HALT root-cause analysis and provide insightful case studies on how to make sure you and your team close the loop on design improvement.

Sign up for this free opportunity to learn more about the importance of root-cause analysis in your HALT testing program.

Qualmark and partner, DfR Solutions, will be hosting an open house at DfR headquarters facility in College Park, Maryland on Wednesday, April 15.

You may have heard about HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) and HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Screen), but are unsure how it works and if the process would benefit your reliability program. This open house presents a perfect opportunity to investigate HALT.

During the open house you will:

• Discover the HALT / HASS accelerated testing paradigm
• View a HALT demonstration
• Learn how DfR’s failure analysis expertise uncovers meaningful design improvement opportunities
• See how HALT allows you to bring your products to market faster, reduce warranty costs and increase product profitability

Please join us to learn more about how together DfR and Qualmark can provide you not only with HALT test results, but also with solutions to your product reliability concerns.

If you'd like to attend the open house, send an email to events@qualmark.com.

Qualmark is sad to announce the passing of Charlie Bates on Sunday, January 25, 2009. He had turned 68 on January 2 and retired from Qualmark just last October.

Charlie was an early believer in HALT and HASS testing and shared his enthusiasm teaching classes and holding seminars worldwide for Qualmark. His Southern charm and ready humor will be missed by all who met him.

Charles Owen Bates, Jr.
(January 2, 1941 - January 25, 2009)