From Start to Finish: Ensuring Product Excellence at Sepura
At Sepura, we take immense pride in managing the complete lifecycle of our products. This comprehensive approach ensures that every product we create is designed, tested, and refined to meet the real-world challenges our customers face. Our commitment to quality and reliability is unwavering, beginning with understanding our customers' needs and ending with delivering solutions that exceed their expectations.
Mechanical verification testing plays a crucial role in ensuring the reliability and durability of our products, particularly for critical communication situations where Sepura radios and accessories must perform reliably under extreme conditions.
Designing tests that accurately replicate real-world conditions is a significant challenge. While a lab environment cannot perfectly mimic every scenario, efforts are made to get as close as possible. Input is gathered from product managers as well as from end users, such as the police force, to understand their expectations and real-world usage of the products. This information is invaluable in designing tests that simulate actual use conditions and often go beyond them to ensure product reliability.
ANDREA MORREALE, MECHANICAL VERIFICATION TEAM LEADER, SEPURA
The role of mechanical verification
Mechanical verification is integral to the product development process at Sepura. It’s critical that all our devices must endure both physical stress and environmental extremes while maintaining reliable functionality and our testing procedures are designed to ensure radios can withstand the harshest conditions.
Sepura products often face tough treatment from our customers due to the demanding environments in which they are used. Despite these challenges, we expect our radios to function flawlessly and reliably.
All our products undergo rigorous physical testing to ensure the functionality of every component. Our mechanical testing simulates extreme scenarios, including exposure to rain, debris, fluctuating temperatures, severe vibrations, impacts from falls, and even physical altercations. Additionally, Sepura radios are designed to be operable with or without heavy gloves, adding another layer of complexity to the design and testing process.
We care a lot about customer feedback and try to replicate the real-world conditions as best as possible.
ANDREA MORREALE, MECHANICAL VERIFICATION TEAM LEADER, SEPURA
Customer communication and external certification
Effective communication with our customers is vital. Before making a purchase, customers want assurance of our product's capabilities. During the pre-sale phase, the mechanical verification testing team invite customers to the lab at our Cambridge HQ to witness product demonstrations and test methods. This allows our customers the opportunity to observe firsthand the rigorous testing our products undergo. Sepura’s customers come from across the globe, each facing unique challenges. Our team addresses these specific issues and environmental factors, ensuring our products meet diverse needs.
Successful teamwork with customers has led to significant product improvements. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, customer practices were thoroughly investigated to understand the chemical interaction of a specific cleaning chemical on Sepura radios. Working collaboratively, the chemical interaction responsible for the damage was discovered and addressed. This open and collaborative approach ensures that Sepura's products remain reliable and durable.
External certification is pursued only after internal tests have been successfully completed. Every Sepura product must meet all internal standards before seeking third-party validation.
We strive to understand what the customer likes and dislikes, then design and test accordingly. This approach emphasises our commitment to creating products that are not only innovative but also highly relevant, robust, and functional in real-world applications. By incorporating customer feedback into the early stages of product development, we can ensure that our products meet and exceed our customer expectations.
ANDREA MORREALE, MECHANICAL VERIFICATION TEAM LEADER, SEPURA
Prototyping and early-stage testing
In the early stages of product development, prototypes play a crucial role in gathering valuable customer feedback. By creating prototypes, our team at Sepura can engage directly with customers to understand their preferences and needs. This feedback is instrumental in determining the appropriate specifications for products. For example, the force required to press a button is carefully analysed to strike a balance—ensuring it is not too easy, which could lead to accidental presses, nor too difficult, which could hinder usability.
During the design verification phase, it is not uncommon for initial tests to fail as the product matures. These failures are an expected part of the development process and provide critical insights. Each failure is meticulously documented with pictures and videos to identify the root cause. This documentation allows our design team to make necessary adjustments and improvements. Continuous testing and design refinement ensure that all components work harmoniously together, leading to a robust final product.
Commitment to quality and reliability
Mechanical verification testing at Sepura is a comprehensive and rigorous process designed to ensure products can withstand the toughest conditions. From the initial design stages to final certification, our commitment to quality and reliability is unwavering. Through meticulous testing, continuous design refinement, and effective customer collaboration, Sepura strives to provide the highest standard of secure public radios. This dedication to mechanical verification ensures that Sepura products perform reliably, even in the most demanding environments.
