Overview
Any action which serves to impair or prevent normal operation of your cable harness tester may have expensive side effects on your business
- Contract manufacturers may be unable to ship cable products without the required quality certification;
- OEM manufacturers may be unable to certify incoming cable or harness assemblies before commitment to inventory;
- Factory maintenance personnel may be prevented from diagnosing malfunctioning robotic, printing press, or other computer-controlled machinery, causing expensive delays in production.
Disruptive events include both temporary situations like voltage transients, and less easily corrected problems like equipment damage. Test and quality control engineers may be proactive about preventing process failures by their awareness of potential problems, and development of procedures to prevent failure and speed equipment repair when failure occurs.
Read this helpful article in full, published in the November, 2005 issue of Test & Measurement World magazine:
Protecting the Tester by Christopher E. Strangio
Outline
1 - Electrical Hazards
Attachment of a "Live" Cable to the Tester
Static Discharge into Test Point Terminals
Power Line Transients
Conductive Debris
2 - Mechanical Hazards
Connector Wearout
Defective Connectors
Improper Insertion
Contamination
Improper Storage
3 - Component Failure
4 - Software Failure
Summary
Our dependence on complex systems in modern manufacturing leaves us vulnerable to unexpected process failure that may have expensive consequences. While we cannot foresee the future, our awareness of failure modes should lead to simple preventive measures. Well taken precautions help avoid the silent panic following our realization that a preventable accident will extract a heavy cost in time and inconvenience to correct.
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