Testimonials
“OPS A La Carte’s HALT services have been instrumental regarding our multiple product development and testing efforts over the past 6 years. The HALT efforts at OPS have helped us to identify and correct issues which could have impacted the reliability of our product significantly. Also, our electric vehicle charging station products consume a significant amount of energy and, while the lab at OPS was initially unable to support our current requirements, OPS went above and beyond to meet our needs and installed a new circuit to support our testing effort. OPS has continually provided professional yet personable customer service over the past several years. At OPS, we have definitely felt like a valued customer, not just a number. We highly recommend OPS’ services and expertise and plan to continue using their services in the future.”
— J.W.
Major EVSE Company, July 7, 2018
“Ops A La Carte has been a valuable asset to our company, providing necessary reliability resources during our development program. They helped develop our Reliability Program Plan and then executed critical analysis and testing portions of the Plan”
— Rajan Patel
VP of Product Development, M2 Medical Inc.
” …The breadth and depth of Ops A La Carte’s knowledge in quality issues have helped us to quickly identify our product strengths and weaknesses. I commend their efficiency, quality of work and professionalism”
— Samuel Chang
Director of Engineering, Aurora Networks
“It’s been a great pleasure working with Ops A La Carte. Their professionalism and expertise in the area of Highly Accelerated Life Test has been instrumental in helping Rockwell Collins become the leader in display system solutions.”
— Greg Lau & Larry States
Product Integrity Eng., Rockwell-Collins San Jose, CA
“Ops A La Carte brought the precise experience we needed to complete our project in a short time frame. The requirements were very stringent, and as a start-up company we had little expertise or resources to deal with this. They provided the structure and the direction to complete our project on time and with high quality.”
— Don Bacci
VP Operations, Phaethon Communications
“In today’s quest to provide the most reliable products and services to our customers, Ops A La Carte has been instrumental in providing reliability data that enables us to better meet our customers needs. Doing it any other way just isn’t practical!”
— Cynthia Broderick
Director of Quality, Atrica Inc.
“Ops A La Carte did an excellent job teaching a private two-day reliability seminar for our team. We learned a lot and would certainly use them again.”
–Isaac Ohel
VP Engineering, Novera Optics
“As a supplier of capital equipment to the semiconductor industry, the dependability of our test solutions is paramount. In our partnership with Ops A La Carte, we are applying the HALT methodology as a proactive tool to root out the key failure modes in our early and advanced prototypes–so that our pilot and production units deliver the dependability that our customers demand.”
–Rick Casler
VP Engineering, Electroglas
“Lead-free is now a reality for electronics manufacturers, with legislation in place the clock is ticking and companies need to respond. This is the most significant change to electronics manufacturers since the move away from CFCs and solutions and must be in place by July 1st, 2006. Ops A La Carte provides a bottoms up from basics approach to reliability risks associated with the change to lead free solders and components. Their thorough knowledge and experience of reliability engineering tools provided an excellent base to PSC in developing an on-going reliability assessment plan for our products as we make this change to lead free electronic assemblies. They have assisted me every step of the way in ensuring we will be compliant to this legislation while maintaining our high level of product reliability and maintaining our customer loyalty. Ops A La Carte has also continued to provide me with much needed answers and guidance long after the original contract, for which I am truly grateful. I would highly recommend Ops A La Carte to anyone interested in quality and reliability services as well as RoHS reliability risks assessment as it relates to their products or services.”
–Roger Swets
Senior Reliability Engineer, PSC Inc.
“We were looking for a knowledgeable person/company to come in and give a 2 day seminar in order to train our Reliability Engineers on the basics of HALT/HASS and Reliability Integration. Ops A La Carte provided exactly what we asked for in a very professional manner, and they were open to modifying the presentation based on our Company’s specific needs. Our Engineer’s gave positive feedback on the seminar and stated that they now have the knowledge, and are comfortable with going out and performing HALT on our products. We would definitely refer Ops A La Carte to other companies and may bring them back for periodic refresher training.”
— Mike Zimmermann
Senior Reliability Engineer, Rockwell Collins
“I am pleased to entrust the courses that I have created to Ops a la Carte. I am confident that Ops A La Carte and Fred Schenkelberg will present them effectively and that they will apply their own wide experience to develop them in line with changes in technology and methods”
–Patrick O’Connor
Author of Practical Reliability Engineering
Author of Test Engineering, Consultant
“Reliability improvement is one of the most important initiatives in a comprehensive manufacturing cost reduction program”
—Dale DeHart
President, DeHart Consulting, LLC
“Asyst has used Ops A La Carte to supplement our Reliability capabilities when project requirements exceeded staffing levels. We were very satisfied with their work. We also found the CRE classes very useful in preparing for certification.”
— Peter Clark
CRE, Manager of Reliability, Asyst Technologies
Ops Ala Carte’s registration process was very easy. Doug was a great course instructor and answered all our questions. The online meeting tool Ops A La Carte utilizes was very simple to use, and I especially liked being able to use VoIP rather than dial long distance. The online course while only offered from 9pm – 1am EST was well worth the several late nights here in Michigan!!
During the seven weeks of class, I read the chapters and did the example chapter problems before each class. After each week’s class, I also did all the end of chapter problems. During the two weeks before the exam, I took 6 or 7 practice exams using the CRE PRIMER CD, and re-read my “weak subject” chapters. I also made condensed notes for those chapters.
During the exam, I only used the Ops Ala Carte course material (CRE PRIMER) and felt well prepared. During the exam, I did as Doug suggested and skipped the problems I didn’t know right away (about 30 problems out of 150 total). We came back to them during the last 45 minutes of the exam, some I suddenly remembered how to do while others I simply had to guess on. Overall, the experience was great, I learned more about tools and techniques used in the field of Reliability Engineering. I had an opportunity to network with other Reliability Professionals and most importantly, I passed the CRE Exam on the first try! Thank you! I would highly recommend this course to anyone who’s considering taking ASQ’s Certified Reliability Engineer exam.”
— Christopher M. Jeruzal
PE, CRE, Reliability Engineer, The Dow Chemical Company
“Mike’s depth of knowledge and attention to detail left us with a much deeper appreciation of reliability and design-for-manufacturing, and allowed us to immediately implement many of his concepts and ideas. His flexible attitude and approach to coaching allowed us to fit a detailed course into our busy schedules.”
— Jonathan Wells Ph.D.
Director RF Development, Stratex Networks
“Ops A La Carte prepared for Paramit Corp a 1/2 day reliability clinic for our customers that was very informative and useful to both our internal engineering teams and to our customers. Because of that one seminar, many customers expressed interest in HALT/HASS and some have proceeded down that path. Paramit plans on bringing Ops A La Carte in for a 2 day seminar internally in the near future. The benefit far exceeds the price.”
— Frank Markovich
Development Engineering Manager, Paramit Corporation
“We have been using Ops A La Carte for several years to perform HASS Development and Production HASS on our Illuminator product and we have been very satisfied with both the results of their services and the value we are getting from them.”
— Alex Romanczuk
Engineering Manager, Perkin-Elmer Optical Division
“In a relatively short period of time Ops A La Carte was able to help us identify our strengths and weaknesses on product quality in the field and in the areas of reliability, test and manufacturing engineering. They also helped us develop a very comprehensive manufacturing engineering strategy based upon our available resources.”
— Allan Coulson
Director of Manufacturing Engineering, Blue Coat Systems Inc.
“Mike’s seminars taught through Hobbs Engineering have always received excellent reviews. He and I have co-taught our respective seminars in Germany and Mike is fully prepared to teach my HALT and HASS seminar himself. As business picks up and I am unable to meet the demand, Mike is the chosen instructor.
When I get phone calls on some aspect of reliability beyond my skill set, I refer the person to Mike for information or further referral. I highly recommend Mike and Ops A La Carte for any situation. If they can not solve the problem, then they will find someone who can.”
— Gregg K. Hobbs
Ph.D. P.E., President of Hobbs Engineering Corporation
President of HALT and HASS Systems Corporation and the originator of HALT and HASS.
“IceCube is a kilometer-scale deep-ice neutrino observatory under construction at the South Pole. The electronics is required to perform reliably for 15 years. Maintenance and replacement are not options. Reliability and schedule are major considerations along with cost and performance. We concluded that the standard reliability models and testing are of limited relevance to the IceCube environment. We asked Mike Silverman, Ops A La Carte managing partner, for assistance. Mike and his team came through for us. They 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.”
— Ed Kujawski Ph.D.
Senior Reliability/Systems Staff, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
“As vendor dynamics change between companies and Industries throughout Silicon Valley I’ve found that Ops A La Carte is one service I can easily carry between different industries providing concise reliability and compliance services to my relevant projects under development.”
— Dave Hargis
Director of Hardware Engineering, Trapeze Networks
“We have used Ops a La Carte to model a number of critical components of our CATV equipment portfolio (laser transmitters, nodes, Ethernet equipment, etc.) for MTBF at the request of our customers. They have produced very high-quality results for us, with fast turn around 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 with major MSOs. When we have a reliability issue, we always turn to Ops a la Carte for a solution.”
— Rick Villa
Engineering Manager, Aurora Networks
“General Hydrogen is a new technology company developing hydrogen fuel cell systems for industrial truck applications. We hired Ops A La Carte to do a preliminary reliability analysis of our technology and to advise us on our purchase of a HALT chamber. We are happy with the results of the work and we continue to look for opportunities to incorporate Ops A La Carte’s expertise into our product development strategy.”
— Darren Sokoloski
Engineering Manager, General Hydrogen
“I have worked with Mike and Ops A La Carte in several capacities over the years – as a student in his online CRE class, as a customer of his consulting services in hardware and software reliability, and as a co-volunteers in organizing the annual IEEE Accelerated Stress Testing and Reliability Workshop. Mike is a knowledgeable and compelling speaker and provider of reliability services. I wholeheartedly recommend him, and his company should you need reliability education, training, or consulting services. He provides excellent customization of all material to suit your individual business needs.”
— Cheryl Tulkoff
Consultant, former Manager of Reliability, National Instruments
“I felt that taking the class with Opsalacarte was a huge factor in me passing the CRE exam. I fully appreciate Doug’s effort in this regards.”
— Senan Khairie
Field Product Quality Engineer, Cisco Systems
“Thought the course material help identify blind spots on knowledge. Also thought the CD test questions helped build up speed at answering the questions on the test as well as identified weak spot to go study”
— Michael Hmelar
Coherent, Inc.
“Ops A La Carte and its team of engineers have provided Fairchild Imaging Inc. with valuable reliability planning, analysis and training support on several major programs during the past five years. In each instance, their work has been accurate, thorough and delivered on time.”
— Mark Pierce
Quality Assurance Manager, Fairchild Imaging Systems
Robust and reliable instrumentation are critical to the success of the medical diagnostics industry. Unreliable test results from cancerous tissue staining instruments can result in inappropriate therapy recommendations, and the potential loss of human life.
When Ventana Medical came to OPS A La Carte (OPS) with our reliability challenges, we were developing a new product requiring ambitious and significant reliability improvements at ten orders of magnitude over our past experiences. We had done our homework and implemented a thorough design for reliability program, however, we still needed to prove we could meet the reliability goals for this product once the design was complete, functionally verified and validated. Situations like this are where OPS A La Carte’s expertise excels.
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.
It was a historical moment at Ventana Medical when, at product launch, we could clearly state we knew exactly how reliable our product was and could prove it with objective data. Our customers are delighted with the results, and our management is very pleased with the project and product cost containment, this approach has resulted in.
Ops A La Carte provided highly technical staff and capable test facilities in multiple, convenient locations at an acceptable cost value compared to other available test labs. The complete “turn key” list of options available to us was more extensive than any other lab we surveyed. Everything from test program theory presentation, systems analysis, options and trade study support, test planning, test execution, test documentation creation, and executive results presentation was provided. With this excellent level of technical support, we knew we would not fail at achieving our goals.
We are extremely happy with our experience working with Ops A La Carte, and we look forward to working with them again on our next product development initiative. A more professional, customer focused, and value conscious test laboratory would be very hard, if not impossible for us to find in today’s marketplace. OPS knows the customer value proposition equation and have optimized their services to meet customer needs in a highly professional manner that is head and shoulders above the competition.
— G. Michael Baker
Principal Program Manager, Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.
“I would like to thank you on behalf of our team. The HALT testing was very fruitful, and we found some simple problems that would have certainly been field failures. Mike was great in the initial planning stages and explanation of HALT theory (2X I might add). Doug carried out testing in a professional and responsible manner and was extremely helpful during testing with suggestions, test setup/implementation, and the extended evaluation, which was not even in the test plan but was performed without hesitation. The redesign work has already begun. I hope your chamber can handle the new products. We look forward to working with you again.”
— Andrew McFarland
Director of Engineering, Symyx
“I have worked with Ops A La Carte for this last year, and I have the utmost confidence in the quality of their work. The information was always presented professionally and timely. Mr. Silverman even made himself available to me in support of high priority RFP’s that needed his assistance to complete. I highly recommend Ops A La Carte.”
