Consumer Electronics

Consumer products frequently have to compete with many similar products, and the spread of prices (especially for mature products) is generally small. Often the only way of differentiating products is on reliability levels.

Reliability is also important for the company image; a good reputation can take years to establish, but can be lost very quickly during the launch of a single unreliable product.

Product reliability improvement checks are normally confined to the development phase of new products and for checking design changes. 100% Burn-in is usually too expensive on such cost-conscious products, though may be used during production ramp-up to avoid shipping unreliable products to end customers. Once the process becomes stable this may be replaced by checking on a sample basis only.