Edition #13 - Building a Product Verification Plan That Prevents Costly Failures

The product verification plan is a roadmap for testing and validating a product’s performance throughout the development phase. It outlines how your business will demonstrate that your product meets its targets and is safe, durable, and fit for purpose.

The plan defines pass/fail criteria for each requirement and will likely include some of the following:

• Size and weight verification: Confirms that the product meets dimensional and weight specifications, including checks on the packaged size.
• Functionality testing: Verifies that the product performs as required, confirming that all functions, features, and capabilities meet the intended use and user needs.
• Configuration and accessory matrix verification: Verifies that the product works correctly with all compatible configurations and accessories, ensuring proper fit, functionality, and performance when used with optional components.
• Actuation force testing: Ensures that all actuators (such as buttons, levers, and pedals) require an appropriate force for operation, verifying both functionality and ergonomic usability.
• Environmental testing: Simulates real-life environmental conditions by exposing the product to factors such as UV radiation, salt spray, dust ingress, humidity, and temperature fluctuations. Accelerated ageing parameters are used to mimic the long-term environmental exposure the product will experience over its lifespan.
• Static loading testing: Assesses the product’s ability to withstand static loads or pressures, ensuring it can support expected stresses without failure. This includes freight loading tests, which simulate the pressures of being stacked during transportation, such as at the bottom of a shipping container.
• Packaging and drop testing: Evaluates the durability of the packaging and the product itself by simulating drops, impacts, and handling during shipping and distribution. This ensures the product can withstand typical logistics hazards and arrive safely and undamaged to the end user. It also ensures that dropping the product does not create hazards for the user.
• Shaker table testing: Simulates transportation conditions to ensure that fasteners, assemblies, and other components do not loosen or malfunction due to vibration during shipping and handling.
• Safety mechanism and critical component testing: Focuses on the durability and reliability of critical components and safety features, verifying they remain functional throughout the product’s lifecycle, even after extended or intensive use.
• Strength, durability, endurance, and wear testing: Simulates real-world use by subjecting the product to continuous use or repeated cycles until failure (where appropriate). This evaluates longevity, strength, and durability across all configurations and accessory combinations.
• Life expectancy testing: Estimates the product’s overall lifespan by assessing performance and durability over extended use. This includes evaluating wear, failure modes, and verifying that the product meets the life expectancy targets.
• Regulatory compliance testing: Ensures the product meets all relevant material and product regulations, safety standards, and certifications at the local, regional, and global levels.

The design of the product verification plan is critical. Careful thought must be given not only to the design of each individual test but also to the sequence in which tests are performed. One sample product may be subject to multiple consecutive tests to ensure the worst-case scenario.

A well-designed product verification plan is more than just a series of tests; it is a comprehensive, dynamic system that safeguards the integrity of your product and your business. It ensures that every stage of development, from prototype to first-off production units, is rigorously evaluated against clearly defined criteria. By incorporating both controlled lab tests and real-world simulation testing, you can comprehensively assess how your product will perform under ideal conditions and in unpredictable, real-world scenarios.
The value of a product verification plan also extends far beyond the immediate product cycle. It becomes a strategic asset that builds on the lessons of previous iterations, fortifying your business’s expertise and protecting against costly failures.

Additionally, it provides invaluable insights that improve not only your product but your entire development process. By continuously refining your verification plans based on real-world feedback, your organisation improves its product development and maintains a competitive edge.

Ensuring you have a good process around creating, updating and using product verification plans is an essential aspect of effective product risk management. These activities will pay dividends in preventing failures in market, warranty costs and potential product recalls.