Reliability Lab Testing, Consulting, Training.

Ops a la Carte

Call: (408) 654-0499, x204

Email: info@OPSaLaCarte.com

Engineering Success with Reliable Products.

Questions for the Experts?

BUSINESS – OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT

· · Leave a Comment

THEME: Why do this?  An abbreviated view of how to do it A recent article in Bloomberg/Business Week (Dec 10-16, 2012) interview by Josh Tyrangiel of Apple's CEO Tim Cook noted a key point in business practice/philosophy: "There are always things unknowable - if we are finding zero issues, our performance bar is in the wrong place" WHY THINK THIS WAY?  You need to improve - it must be a way of business performance in all areas People, knowkedge, & technology/information There is a need to understand your business performance attitude (Change it or Perish) HOW?  (An abbreviated view) Understand Value Analysis Identify your Competitive Advantage (Quality, Availability, Flexibility, Cost) Tool to employ (System Audit) Practice Need a champion/advocate Establish measurements Use …

[Read more...] about BUSINESS – OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT

Continuous Improvement – Supplier Development

· · 1 Comment

Continuous Improvement (CI) is a driving force in business.  However, how do we go about obtaining such from our Suppliers? What do we, as customers, do to define such to our suppliers - the expectations of improved quality, delivery service, and cost reduction? What is done to aide the supplier in the pursuit of CI?  What steps can we take to ensure we are the track to improving our performance via compliance of our suppliers? …

[Read more...] about Continuous Improvement – Supplier Development

Soft Error Rate Count

· · Leave a Comment

Moshe Valdman from Israel wrote this question: In a telecom system we have many memories and FPGAs Theoretically we should have quite high failure rate related to "single event upset". I suspect we indeed have such failures, but these could also be just SW "bugs". I have difficult time convincing developers to add ECC, CRC, parity and other means to correct or at least detect such temporary failures. Can you share ideas on how to estimate actual field failures rate related to SEUs and how to quantify the cost? Charlie Slayman, our Ops SER Expert wrote back: Yes, you will have soft errors if you have memory and FPGAs.  Typical rates for SRAM and flops vary between 100 to 1000 FIT per Mb or Mflop.  DRAM rates are much lower, around 100 FIT/Gb.  Check out Slide 25 of my …

[Read more...] about Soft Error Rate Count

Call Us: (408) 654-0499, x204

Email Us: info@OPSaLaCarte.com

Address: 990 Richard Ave, Suite 101, Santa Clara, CA 95050

Contact Us

Empowering companies to create happy customers, with well-engineered products.

Script

OPS A La Carte, Engineering Success with Reliable Products. We are a leading reliability engineering consulting firm since 2001. We have helped many companies create robust products and elevate them to great success, even become the leader in their industry. We are known for providing the whole gamut of reliability lab testing, consulting, and training. With over 25 reliability engineer-experts around the world, with diverse backgrounds and experience, we serve both domestic and global businesses in all areas of reliability, in depth and width. Hi, my name is Jay Muns, owner and CEO. I have more than 30 years of experience in engineering and business operations.

OPS A La Carte have produced very high-quality results for us, with fast turnaround times. Their engineers are the best in their field, are a pleasure to work with, and their work is of the highest standards available. This has helped us obtain critical product approvals…” We help companies see from outside of their forest and understand what they didn’t know before. Companies come to us out of three scenarios: First, when their products fail. We help put out the fire by identifying problems and providing solutions. Second, after a product is designed, to check the box and move on with getting their product into the marketplace. The best is third: to get engaged early, by including reliability as a part of their initial product design goals. This will save time, money and energy. It is much better to have a worry-free product that addresses reliability issues upfront, than dealing with deficiencies after a product is developed, or worse, already manufactured and sold to the end users. Being proactive with reliability engineering will save a business tons of money and trouble. In all scenarios, you receive professional expertise with integrity and at a fair price. Many of our clients are repeat customers for years because of the value we consistently deliver.

Our ENGINEER-consultants each have over 20 years of experience and perform lab testing, consulting and training based on actual reliability science. They follow well established industry standards, such as “HALT” (highly accelerated life test,) and “HASS” (highly accelerated stress screen.) These engineers evaluate, make recommendations and validate results based on highly relevant lab data, co-relating to real world data. Whether your company has a reliability department or not, you can take advantage of our entire testing-consulting-training package, or any portion of it. We also offer Failure analysis and safety certification services such as UL, CE, and other environmental testing services, like solar, UV, SALT spray testing, ESD (electro-static discharge,) and EMC (electro-magnetic compatibility.)

“Ops A La Carte trained us to use HALT methodology as a proactive tool, to root out key failures in our early and advanced prototypes, and that made it possible for us to deliver dependability that our customers demand, in pilot and production units."“...OPS has played a key role in our evolution from a research company to a manufacturer of ‘mission-critical’ components.” A couple of companies describe our HALT/HASS training as “highly informative, engaging and exciting.” “The benefit far exceeds the price."

Our mission is to enable companies to create their happy customers, with a well-engineered product. By helping our clients understand the real problems and the real solutions, we help improve their careers and reputations. Achieving the win-win-win results for our clients and their customers is our ultimate satisfaction. We have a family-like company culture with positive energy and great teamwork. An improved and reliable product is our own small way to contribute to a better humanity and a slightly better world. Call us at (408) 654-0499, or email us at info@opsalacarte.com, or visit our website www.opsalacarte.com. Thank you!

A couple of our clients' testimonials:

"The expert team at OPS assisted us in evaluating the available reliability testing possibilities, and with their help, we crafted a customized test program precisely sized to meet the needs of our project. The resulting program proved to our team, our customers, and our regulatory auditors that our product was robust, met its reliability goals effectively, and satisfied all safety risk factors."

"...Ops A La Carte worked with us to develop a testing program based on HALT and HASS to effectively assess low-temperature operation capability and screen the boards for assembly and component defects. They then facilitated and supported the HALT and HASS testing effort. It was quicker and more efficient than we had expected. The boards for the first four strings have been delivered. We are looking forward to working with them through completion of the project."