CPI COVER STORY
CI: How rigorous is the testing required? JC: Very rigorous. We have equipment on site that can replicate the worst environmental conditions on the planet – from extreme climate conditions to situations in which a product is exposed to particulates, liquids and even electromagnetic interference. When we don’t have on-site equipment to support a certain test, we utilize external test houses to perform that activity. Testing includes not just the qualification of complete products, but also the performance of life testing on individual parts and modules.
CI: One of the most important parts of the office and lab must be the environmental testing area, where you put currency-handling and processing tools through the mill. What happens there and how do you do it? JC: Environmental testing is indeed one of the major focus areas in the lab. We run a battery of tests that includes validation of operation across the full temperature and humidity range, exposure to thermal shocks and storage conditions as well as rapid and extreme changes in environment. Bottom line, our customers depend on how well our products perform, so we work very hard to ensure our products will be able to withstand the rigors of whatever environment they’re placed in. It all ties back to total cost of ownership – it’s part of our value proposition.
CI: What follows testing in-house – is it field
tests? JC: For new products, or if significant design
changes are made, we do conduct field trials. However, these trials occur in parallel with lab qualification testing. Once both have been successfully completed, the product/change is approved for sale.
CI: How close is your test area to the actual
working boundaries a device will encounter in the wild? What’s the margin of difference? JC: We make every attempt to replicate and
exceed the conditions a product will experience in the field. Our goal is to test our equipment to failure and then eliminate the weakest links. This ensures that our products robustly perform across the conditions they are designed to withstand. We do however sometimes run into new or unexpected environments which are then added to our test suite.
CI: How do you test for behavioural issues, for
wont of a better way to put it? The things people do… JC: Great question. We use human Operators to
test our products in the lab and encourage all of our personnel to be as creative as possible in developing test cases which are designed to stress our equipment. However, it’s remarkable what you see when actually monitoring machine usage in the field. The variability associated with human interaction never ceases to amaze us, and we take every opportunity to learn and improve from our observations. As with environmental variance, these learnings are constantly being fed back into our test processes.
It’s one of the primary reasons
why our products are known for their performance and longevity.
OCTOBER 2016 35
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