work with trusted suppliers and PCB assem-
blers. However, the more proprietary expertise
a company can contribute itself, in the areas of
solder, material or thermal manufacturing experts,
the better the quality and lifetime reliability of the
LED light engine will be.
In the cases where companies outsource the
manufacture of LED light engines to a third party,
there should be a resident engineer on-site, to
supervise and help the subcontractor manage and
improve in-line manufacturing controls and filters to
the high prescribed quality and reliability standards
that the company requires over time.
Quality control measures and testing cycles in
the manufacturing process should be balanced
by manufacturing efficiency. They should be an
essential part of a well-considered and realistic
quality and reliability process. LED reliability is not
just about producing one good batch of products
in the laboratory, but a continuous effort to control
quality down the supply chain. It is about having
a Statistical Process on critical aspects and taking
realistic sample sizes. It is about on-going process
control in manufacturing.
Luminaire manufacturers, whether they are mak-
ing LED light engines themselves, or outsourcing
manufacture to a third party, would be wise to
choose a supplier that has these parameters under
control and manage them by bringing in own ad-
ditional manufacturing expertise. The importance
of manufacturing excellence for LED module or
luminaire reliability and lifetime is about more than
simply extrapolating the LED chip testing data and
applying it to an LED luminaire.
The IEC PAS 62717 Standard will help clarify the
subject, but will not replace the insights required
to manufacture long life and reliable LED solutions.
