News & Updates

• Safety Critical Components for NRTL Marks
• Common Industry Standards for Environmental Testing
• New Requirement for EN 61326

• Safety
  • Commercial Testing
  • Military/Aerospace
  • Consulting
• EMC
  • 10m anechoic chamber
  • 3m front
  • 3m middle
  • ESD and Surge/Burst/Dips
  • reverberation
  • wireless
• Environmental
  • Temperature & Humidity
  • Vibration & Shock
  • HALT
  • Altitude
  • Dust
  • Salt Fog
• Company
  • Employment Opportunities
  • Standards
• Quote Request
• Directions

Product Design, Regulatory, and Reliability Consulting

PTI’s consulting group has developed a very special set of skills because we deal every day with products that will need to pass regulatory and reliability tests, or has failed testing. Our consultants are familiar with the typical electromagnetic compatibility problems, reliability problems, and safety compliance issues that are common in electronics, and as a result we’re familiar with the solutions. We offer the following areas of help: Product Design Assistance, Test Plan Development, a “Virtual Regulatory Engineer” program, MTBF Analysis, and test fixturing / customized testing solutions.

Product Design Assistance

We offer 3 levels of service in design assistance:

1. Construction / design reviews to spot any major issues that will create obstacles to compliance testing
2. Construction / design revisions: Mechanical enclosure and board layout changes, with an emphasis on reliability and passing regulatory issues
3. Product Design from concept: Do you have an idea, funding, and a target market? Many design firms don’t consider or understand what it takes to satisfy your customer’s reliability concerns, your reliability concerns, or governmental regulatory issues. Let us make sure along the way that your product is ready for market from concept to first manufacturing runs.

Test Plan Development

Do you have reliability goals for your product, and want to make sure your product meets that design at prototype phase? Let one of our reliability experts design a test plan for you that ensures your design will last to your expectations in the real world. For EMC Testing: we can help you design a plan that you can understand and repeat for electromagnetic compatibility testing. The main advantages of using us for a test plan include:

1. Repeatability: All the fine details of the test setup will be captured such that any lab can reproduce the setup and come up with the result
2. Goals: The final production units can stay under the field failure rates you need to survive, grow, and maintain a good reputation

Virtual Regulatory Engineer

If you are designing a piece of electronics: Particularly a medical device, IT equipment, or test & Measurement equipment, there is a considerable amount of regulatory issues to consider and a lot of testing and paperwork that goes along with it. If your company is not at the level of needing full-time assistance in regulatory issues, let us operate as your virtual compliance engineer! You only pay when you need us, and you have access to a multitude of expertise in product safety compliance, electromagnetic compatibility compliance, and reliability issues also. You can even download a sample copy of our virtual compliance engineer agreement.

MTBF Analysis

MTBF, or “Mean Time Between Failures” is the average time between failures of a system, and is often considered the "useful life" of the device. MTBF does not account for 'infant mortality' or 'end of life' if the device is not repairable. Calculations of MTBF assume that a system is fixed after each failure, and then returned to service immediately after failure. This is not a tested value, but rather a calculated value based on the components. The MTBF calculation is done on IT equipment, medical equipment, and Test / Measurement equipment and is most appropriate for electronic systems without any external moving parts. PTI can provide MTBF calculations based on a bill of materials for the following:

1. MIL-HDBK-217F (N1/2), Appendix A, Parts Count Method
2. Bellcore TR-332, Parts Count Method I
3. Telcordia SR-332, Parts Count Method I

test fixturing / customized test solutions

Sometimes you have unique test requirements, where commercial equipment to test to those requirements isn’t readily available. Some examples of this situation include:

• Mechanical wear tests where a lever or button has to be actuated a few thousand times
• Electrical tests where a fault condition has to be replicated multiple times, or even thousands of times.

Our team of engineers and technicians can set up a custom and automated test for you, even if nothing is commercially available to perform the tests.

EMC/EMI (Electromagnetic Compatibility):

Reliability: