Bengaluru. 07 April 2018. AMETEK Instruments announced the successful development of an Automated Remote Functional Test System for use during the Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) of electronic modules and sub-systems. The architecture of the new Test System is based on AMETEK VTI Instruments’ FlexSys™ series of common core Automated Test Equipment (ATE) solutions. The test system was jointly envisaged, designed, developed, integrated and tested by AMETEK engineers based in India for use in Tata Power SED’s Environmental Testing lab in Bengaluru. This joint effort reflects AMETEK’s commitment to the “Make-in-India” initiative, which was launched as a way to transform India into a global Design and Manufacturing hub.
Prior to the development of this new system, the standard qualification procedures required the company’s acceptance team to be on site to witness the functional tests each time the ESS testing cycle was performed. However, this requirement often created delays in the overall delivery schedule, as scheduling constraints among members of the acceptance team made it difficult for them to be physically present in the Environmental Test lab when tests were to be conducted. In contrast, the infrastructure of the new system allows the acceptance team to control and monitor qualification tests remotely, saving both time and money by eliminating the need to travel to the Test lab to witness the tests. Observers can monitor the entire test run through a live video feed and control the tests via a web-based software interface. The new system also allows the testing team to record the entire test cycle and test reports for future reference.
For the Acceptance team, the Automated Remote Functional Testing System has helped them improve the quality of their products by minimizing the opportunities for human error, reduced test times, and improved product testing throughput. At the same time, the new system has enhanced the quality and repeatability of the tests performed, thereby increasing confidence in the accuracy of the test results.
The Tata Power SED technical team appreciated the speed at which the AMETEK team was able to grasp the requirements and execute the project. They further acknowledged AMETEK’s technical competence and ability to solve complex interface related issues thus enabling the project to move through the concept proving and testing phases quickly.
The TATA Power SED team also remarked that “The success of this ATE project has enabled Tata Power SED to quickly turnaround their ESS testing for all their future large-volume production orders, which will result in a tremendous savings in terms of time and cost for their Customer QA agencies as well as their Internal QA team”.
In congratulating the development team on the success of the new system, Jatin Kumar Tanwar, Senior Business Development Manager at AMETEK Instruments in India, remarked, “Tata Power SED created a clear vision as to what they needed in their Test lab, which allowed us to architect a scalable ‘enterprise’ test solution that could be used across multiple platforms. Working as an extension of their Test Engineering and Quality teams, we were able to meet all their requirements in a timely fashion. I’m very proud that our team in Bangalore was able to help Tata Power SED achieve their objectives so quickly and effectively.”
FlexSysTM ATE systems
FlexSysTM ATE systems are scalable, integrated test and measurement systems designed for use in medium- to high-mix production environments. In addition to boosting test throughput and reducing floor space requirements, they are designed to preserve signal integrity through the entire test system, including cabling and signal switching to the user interface, maximizing the performance of the test instrumentation. FlexSysTM systems offer manufacturers a new approach to minimizing their capital equipment and system development costs by providing fundamental ATE building blocks of pre-engineered components, which reduces development costs and speeds time-to-readiness. They are configured from precision power, instrumentation and switching blocks produced by AMETEK Programmable Power and AMETEK VTI Instruments. Applications for these systems include aerospace/defense, environmental stress screening (ESS), and electronics manufacturing testing.
