- A study conducted by Dimensional Research for Keysight Technologies reveals that almost all companies that design and develop electronic products experience costly delays that could be avoided due to problems with the configuration or maintenance of test equipment or the training of their users.
The survey reveals that 98% of R&D engineers have been disrupted in the progress of their projects due to problems related to calibration, configuration, misuse of their instruments or breakdowns in their test and measurement equipment. According to 97% of them, these problems were the cause of delays that directly resulted in a loss of revenue for their company.
Main conclusions of the study conducted among 305 R&D engineers in several industrial sectors:
- Delays due to problems with test equipment
97% of respondents reported experiencing project delays due to problems with testing equipment. Equipment failures requiring repair were the most common, cited by 63% of respondents, followed by incorrect equipment configurations (56%) and uncalibrated instruments (50%). - Costs of days lost due to test equipment problems
53% of respondents said that their company was losing more than $100,000 per day when R&D teams could not make progress due to problems with test and measurement equipment. According to 12% of respondents, their company was losing more than $500,000 per day. - Frequency of problems with test and measurement equipment
In a typical month, 95% of respondents said they had to contact the technical support team of their test instrument supplier at least once. In addition, 59% of respondents reported experiencing six or more technical support problems per month, and 13% reported experiencing more than 20 problems per month. - Impact of test equipment problems
53% of respondents said that the manufacture of products was affected by the malfunctioning of test equipment. 47% reported that a product had been rejected by a buyer and 45% reported an increase in product returns, while 28% experienced product recalls. - Technical support and assistance
90% of respondents said they would appreciate having access to external technical support. Troubleshooting is the most desired service (cited by 54%), followed by getting answers to technical questions and the opportunity to talk to experts (53%), understanding how a particular test or piece of equipment works (49%) and calibration services (46%).
