Product quality is paramount to the success of a business. Competing on price, promotion, or placement can only happen once the product’s objective and subjective quality reaches a sufficient level. Material testing can be used to identify product flaws, and reveal opportunities to improve overall product quality, increasing the potential returns for the business. The […]
FTIR Spectroscopy Blog Posts
Evolving Microcontamination Testing Methods
Hard drive manufacturers have been pushing the limits of technology since the medium of data storage was invented. It’s amazing that while storage capacity has increased exponentially, the size of the storage vessel has decreased significantly. State of the art devices now store as much as 6 and 8 Terabytes (TB), and hard drives in […]
How Material Testing Supports Good Manufacturing Practices
Product quality and safety is of the utmost importance for all manufacturers. Good, safe products are part of doing good business. But for manufacturers of products such as drugs, cosmetics, medical devices and some food items, ensuring product quality and safety is also part of compliance with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards. GMP standards are […]
Your Guide to Discovering What Type of Materials Testing You Need to Solve Product Quality Issues
As a quality assurance specialist, you’re trained to spot quality issues and product defects. You know that if the fit isn’t right or the specified color mixture is slightly off, you need to find the cause and a solution to fix it. However, quality control is difficult when there’s an unknown contaminant on your products […]
How Adhesive Label Delamination Can Be Solved with FTIR Analysis
When developing adhesive labels, there is one prevailing goal: the adhesive must stick to its subject. Adhesive labels that lose their adhesion over time, or delaminate, are failed products. Extensive product testing ensures that most of these failed label materials never make it to market. However, those that do can cause serious problems for the […]
What is Chemical Analysis?
Chemical analysis can be used to determine a chemical’s identity or the identity of its components, such as understanding why a product gives off a strong smell or locating what an organic contaminant is made of. The type of specimen and need defines which type of instrumentation to use, as well as which type of […]
FTIR Analysis Helps Monitor HIV Patients
HIV was once considered a death sentence, but thanks to advances in modern medicine, people with HIV who receive proper medical care can live to their country’s average life expectancy. Although it’s now possible to live a full and healthy life with HIV, HIV positive people must be monitored closely to ensure that they are […]
Guess the Materials Characterization Technique Part II
When unknown contaminants appear on your products due to failures in manufacturing processes, there are techniques that can help you identify the cause of the issue. Materials analysis laboratories use materials characterization to analyze and reverse engineer unknown materials to discover their composition. In our last post, we brought up four issues and asked you […]
Materials Analysis Solves Manufacturing Mysteries
When a manufactured electrical switch unexpectedly experienced a series of shorts, quality assurance personnel noticed several abnormal particles within the switch. Because these particles were the only abnormality apparent on the product, and the QA team could not readily define where they came from, the manufacturer decided to submit the particles for materials analysis. This […]
7 Signs that it’s Time for Materials Testing
As an engineering or manufacturing lead for your business, you have enough to do without trying to troubleshoot a mysterious product failure. From staffing issues to inventory and manufacturing to fulfillment, a product failure due to contamination or unexpected out gassing in transit is the last thing you want to hear about. Luckily there materials […]
