Optimized Environmental Stress Screening of U.S. Army Electronic Hardware

Systems analysis techniques employed by the U.S. Army provide engineering guidelines to optimized Environmental Stress Screening (ESS) considering inhouse manufacturing and field costs. Optimized ESS offers an improved quality product with significant cost savings. This article covers the systems analysis techniques and the results achieved. The development of a computer program to enable engineers (menu-driven user-friendly) to review and input inplant variables, plant capacity, test effectiveness, test integration yields, and field failure costs has enabled quality engineers to recommend optimized ESS screens. The results of these studies have identified the potential of $1.1 billion in life-cycle costs savings.