PREFACE

 

Environmental stress screening (ESS) is a process that has gained wide acceptance as an effective means of discovering defective parts and material. Effective application of ESS reduces in-plant rework costs by disclosing defects due to parts, workmanship, and manufacturing process deficiencies. ESS also decreases maintenance and support failures of fielded systems and improves availability during initial deployment.  A closed loop corrective action process, dedicated to determining defect cause and instituting corrective action to prevent recurrence, must be an integral part of ESS to assure maximum benefit.

 

In order to affect continuous process improvement, program managers must tailor the information in this document for the development of solicitation requirements and must allow the contractor implemented processes to change when warranted and justified by the facts so that the processes will be adaptable to changing circumstances.

The efficacy of a process is dependent upon the degree of understanding of all involved of the elements and purpose of the process. This guide is issued to provide the means for this understanding.

D. M. ALTWEGG

Deputy Chief Engineer for Design
and Manufacturing Quality