Quality Control Testing

Quality Control Testing (QC Testing) is a critical safeguard before products are used by customers. We provide your technical teams with critical data and insights to ensure the materials and processes are within the acceptance criteria.

Strong QC programs help our customers:

• Detect deviations in material composition or formulation before they cause failures.
• Reduce downtime, scrap, or rework.
• Maintain consistency across batches & suppliers, or evaluate new suppliers.
• Demonstrate compliance with industry standards, especially if repeated or periodic verification is required.
• Support traceability and documentation for audits or other certifications.

A core part of Quality Control in product development is ensuring that what performs well in prototyping continues to perform the same way in production. As products move from lab to large-scale manufacturing, new variables and complexities are introduced — from additional suppliers and multiple material batches to shared equipment. Quality Control provides the framework and testing discipline needed to manage these variables, ensuring consistency, reliability, and compliance throughout the production process.

Quality Control is essential at every stage of production — from verifying raw materials to checking finished products before they reach customers. Ongoing testing helps ensure that materials, processes, and end products continue to meet defined performance and reliability standards over time.

At Covalent, clients often engage in ongoing quality control testing to support:

• Raw material verification: Confirming that incoming materials meet required specifications before production begins.
• In-process monitoring: Maintaining consistency and identifying drift during manufacturing.
• End product checks: Help verify that finished goods meet quality requirements.

These stages are especially critical when scaling from prototype to production volumes, managing multiple suppliers, implementing or renewing certifications, troubleshooting yield or performance issues, or adapting to process changes after equipment upgrades or material substitutions.

• Dimensional and Surface Inspection: Monitoring dimensions and surface conditions ensures that components and films meet critical specifications that affect fit, function, and reliability. Even small deviations in thickness, roughness, or geometry can lead to performance loss or assembly failure.
• Mechanical Property and Hardness Evaluation: Evaluation of mechanical properties, such as hardness, strength, and resistance to wear, becomes necessary for ascertaining a material’s resistance to operational stresses. This evaluation goes a long way in preventing failure, delamination, and deformation in a material used in stressful conditions.
• Chemical Composition Verification: Ensuring correct chemical makeup is essential because purity, stoichiometry, and contamination levels directly influence material performance. Deviations in composition can lead to poor durability, lower efficiency, or failure to meet regulatory or industry standards.
• Non-Destructive Structural Integrity Testing: Internal structure evaluation that does not cause harm to the component lets defects like cracks, voids, delaminations, and other hidden flaws be identified early. This functionality is key in maintaining product reliability, especially in cases where components are expensive and/or are classified as safety-related.
• Functional and Performance Testing: Evaluating how a part or material performs under intended conditions are used to confirm proper functionality in a given application. Such tests confirm characteristics such as electrical, optical, thermal, and adhesive properties.
• Environmental and Stability Testing: Assessing how materials change with temperature, humidity, or aging helps predict long-term reliability. Monitoring these factors identifies degradation pathways before they cause field failures.

• Material Verification: Ensures incoming or in-process materials match specified grades or standards, supporting QC compliance. It prevents defects and variability by catching incorrect or substituted materials early.
• Compositional Analysis: Provides precise elemental or chemical measurements to confirm materials fall within QC determinations. It identifies subtle deviations that may influence the product..
• Contamination Analysis: Detects unwanted particles, films, or residues that can cause failures or yield loss, making it a critical QC safeguard.
• Metallurgical Analysis: Evaluates microstructure and material properties to ensure they align with QC performance requirements. It helps detect processing issues such as improper heat treatment or grain structure abnormalities.
• Performance Optimization: Improves processes and operating conditions to reliably meet QC targets. By reducing variability and enhancing stability, it strengthens overall product quality and consistency.

If the solution requires recurring testing (e.g., for production consistency), key factors that dictate how often it should be done include:

• Production Volume and Batch Size.
• Criticality of the Component or Material.
• Tolerance Limits and Performance Specifications.
• Supplier Variability and Incoming Material Quality.
• Process Stability and Equipment Calibration.
• Customer or OEM-Specific QA Requirements.
• Regulatory or Industry Compliance Standards.
• Historical Defect Rates and Quality Trends.
• New Material Introduction or Process Changes.
• End-Use Application Risk Level.

In general, quality control programs designed by Covalent’s experts are formulated to provide insight and monitoring without being so onerous that they slow or impede the production process. These programs are designed to test at critical points of a process and prevent issues from progressing downstream. Our experts can consultatively help design a Quality Control program to fit your needs.