Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/912757
printers experienced some amount of shipping outside of the standard packaging verification specifications. The revelation in this was that it didn't matter what delivery path the products had taken. There is always the chance that the final shipping location either would require an un-boxing on site but not at the final installation location or that the printer would end up at the setup location off site and then sent by truck un- packaged to the final installation location, see picture 1. After repeatedly observing these scenarios our team felt that there was an opportunity to add value to the business using the equipment available in our lab. While the lab equipment had been designed for package testing it could also help to simulate this newly identified phase of the installation process. This gap in our traditional testing actually fit well between two sets of testing that currently take place at Lexmark. Product Assurance is the team at Lexmark whose main focus is to find problems during operational use and correct them during development. Product Assurance had a test in place for customer un-boxing during installation but the testing was designed with the assumption that the product is unboxed in close proximity to where it is installed for use. At the time of our customer visits the Lexmark product cycle was ramping up on our next color products. Due to the fortunate timing of events, the Product Assurance and Development teams were in the packaging lab often at this time. As our team shared our findings with them an idea for a new test began to evolve that could bridge the packaged shipment with the installation testing. Test Creation: Our first goal was to determine if this type of testing procedure already existed. From being an ISTA member for years our team knew that while we could look to ISTA for guidance, there was not an existing ISTA procedure for this testing. The next logical place was to check for testing that may be published by other printer hardware manufactures. The first ones we found that looked to be a good starting point belonged to Xerox (XEROX MN2 – 810.13, REV. 16) and HP (HP Packaging Test Manual 5971-3628 Revision A 9/11/01). These tests appeared to be perfect as they outlined random vibration, drop heights and handling hazards. In fact in the introduction of the HP specification they note, "For castored products it is apparent that our standard package tests do not adequately measure the resistance to damage in these unpackaged environments." The only potential problem was that these tests were specifically designed for products on casters, which while Lexmark has products with casters we also have many without. On the visits we had observed carts, furniture dollies and hand jacks all being used to transport products. Also, when we performed these tests they did not appear to be as harsh on the products as we had expected based on our first hand observations. Early exploratory testing seemed too harsh, such as unpackaged fixed displacement vibration (ISTA PROCEDURE 1A Version 2015). An intriguing part of both the HP and Xerox tests were that they outlined handling hazards; this was something we had noted on our observations as a concern. Several shock hazards had been observed in the field such as door thresholds, elevator thresholds specifically the gaps between the lift and the floor, curbs, carpet and diamond plate, see picture 2. 15 ista views • November 2017 • www.ista.org > MORE ON PAGE 16 Picture 1 – Field observations Picture 2 – Hazards observed in field