Q-LAB
Making Testing Simple is Complicated Work

In the manufacturing sector, innovation is paramount. Companies around the world vie to develop the “next big thing.” At some point, those “big things” become products that ultimately experience life outdoors, in the harsh elements. That’s where Q-Lab comes in. As one of the only truly global material testing and durability products providers, it offers an extensive range of advanced weathering, light stability, and corrosion testers that ensure the products tested will indeed last outdoors.

Q-Lab’s testers, including Q-SUN xenon arc and QUV fluorescent UV weathering testers, simulate the harmful effects of sunlight, heat, and outdoor moisture. Similarly, their Q-FOG corrosion test chambers mimic corrosive environments using salt fog and humidity at elevated temperatures.

“Our weathering and corrosion testers are designed to create mini eco-systems that simulate outdoor environmental damage meticulously,” states CEO Doug Grossman, emphasizing their equipment’s critical role. “Weathering and corrosion testing has a wide range of valuable uses, including quality control and product development. Accelerated laboratory testing over the past few decades has led to major advances in product durability in diverse fields like automotive, paints, plastics, building materials, and renewable energy products like wind and solar.”

These testers are, as Grossman goes on to say, “a tool for directional decision-making. Accelerated testing helps to answer questions like what ingredients to include or not include in a product, whether a lot or batch is OK to ship to customers, what vendors to buy from, what processing and manufacturing parameters should be selected, and more.”

Accomplishing this type of complex testing requires sophisticated electro-mechanical machines. These machines sometimes contain more than 1,000 different components, each of which must be properly engineered and integrated.

“We aim to ensure that clients can rely on our products without frequent repairs, minimizing downtime and maximizing productivity,” Grossman says, articulating a clear vision. “We aim to make testing simple for our customers.”

This statement isn’t just a pledge—it’s the cornerstone of Q-Lab’s enduring legacy. Q-Lab’s commitment to meeting customer needs is reflected in its unique design philosophy that prioritizes reliability, design simplicity, and user-friendliness. Clients require durable equipment that is easy-to-maintain, troubleshoot, and operate, minimizing the risk of breakdowns. This focus on simplicity and reliability has established Q-Lab as a true industry leader, in a somewhat crowded space of environmental and other testing equipment makers.

The Path to Design Simplicity and Reliability is Fraught with Challenges

Clients often encounter situations where test chambers fail to deliver consistent test conditions, such as specific light (aka “irradiance”), water or salt spray, temperature, and relative humidity levels.

These inconsistencies can lead to unreliable results that are often compounded by machine reliability issues. Q-Lab dedicates thousands of engineering hours annually to tackle these issues and simplify and improve product designs.

With one of the industry’s most extensive engineering teams, Q-Lab leaves no stone unturned in its pursuit of this ultimate reliability. This is no more evident than in its monthly comprehensive reviews to address customer issues. With a global customer base, the company recognizes that even a handful of challenges can significantly impact user experience. These issues quickly escalate to senior management and become a priority in engineering developments, with about 60 percent of engineering resources dedicated to improving product reliability. The centralized manufacturing operations in Westlake, Ohio, facilitate a synergistic relationship between engineers and production staff. Despite the potential cost savings of offshoring production, Q-Lab prioritizes the collaboration between these teams.

Recognizing the importance of intuitive operation, Q-Lab has significantly invested in its user interface, making it incredibly simple and easy to use. All of its test chambers feature a consistent user interface, allowing technicians to transition between different machines seamlessly. Additionally, most users can walk right up to a machine and start using it, without a manual. This commitment to user-friendly design has been a hallmark of Q-Lab’s approach for over six decades.

Q-Lab also has a dedicated department for acceptance testing, ensuring that each product meets quality standards before leaving the facility. Following production, each tester undergoes a rigorous acceptance testing process that lasts several days, up to a week. This procedure, conducted by a specialized testing staff, follows a comprehensive checklist to verify whether every machine performs accurately. This level of scrutiny ensures that Q-Lab’s products satisfy industry standards, like ASTM or ISO. The engineering team quickly addresses any recurring manufacturing issues, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Once products are deployed, test chambers also require routine maintenance for optimal performance. Q-Lab has streamlined essential tasks like changing lamps in UV testers and calibrating temperature in salt fog testers. These routine calibration and maintenance operations are crucial for obtaining accurate results, especially for temperature and relative humidity sensors. The company has made this process simple enough for users to do themselves, making it more cost-effective than competing approaches that require a company technician to visit. This enhances client satisfaction, machine uptime, and operational efficiency.

Enduring Customer and Product Support

That said, sometimes customers prefer not to do repair and maintenance themselves. That’s where Q-Lab’s extensive support network comes into play. The company’s global network of field repair technicians and distributors provides customer support and training. This investment in training ensures that technicians are well-equipped to offer assistance and troubleshooting. The firm also offers complimentary telephone and email troubleshooting for the full lifetime of each product, empowering customers to handle minor repairs and maintenance and enhancing their autonomy and satisfaction with the products.

Q-Lab’s sales philosophy exemplifies integrity and customer-centricity.

The company never upsells customers beyond their requirements, establishing long-term trust. This commitment to customer satisfaction is showcased when recruiting and retaining employees dedicated to service, ensuring that every member contributes to Q-Lab’s mission of serving customers and supporting colleagues.

Q-Lab’s technical sales team regularly engages with clients and participates in standard societies like ASTM and ISO to stay updated on emerging standards and testing requirements. This allows the firm to anticipate what its customers want and need and discuss how it can meet these demands from an engineering perspective, as well as ensure that widely-used standards are beneficial to those actually conducting the tests. As tests become more complex, particularly in automotive industries, Q-Lab strives to fulfill its customers’ existing requirements and provide innovative solutions that are usually impossible.

While many companies use planned obsolescence as part of their strategy, Q-Lab takes a different approach. While Q-Lab constantly enhances the design and engineering of testers and introduces new models, it also supports every tester it has manufactured, offering advice and documentation and stocking spare parts for testers dating back to 1968. Recently, a customer approached Q-Lab with a 1977 QUV accelerated weathering tester. Although it was electromechanical and had no modern electronics, the company could assist them by providing advice and supplying the necessary and reasonably-priced spare parts.

“Our philosophy is simple—if older machines are still useful to our customers, we will support them,” adds Grossman.

Through these initiatives, Q-Lab delivers reliability and innovation, ensuring that its legacy of excellence continues to grow and inspire for generations to come.

Launch of the Q-Lab’s Latest Innovation – the Q-SUN Xe-8

At the recent American Coatings Show, Q-Lab unveiled its newest groundbreaking product, the Q-SUN Xe-8 xenon arc weathering test chamber. It features a large-capacity rotating rack, which marks a significant expansion into a market segment Q-Lab hadn’t previously entered. After investing tens of thousands of engineering hours over the last decade, it developed a product that addresses the needs of customers requiring very large specimen capacity. Q-Lab’s solution is simpler, more reliable, more easily maintained, and has more features and a price point that is 30 percent lower than that of its competitors. Feedback from beta test customers and industry professionals has been overwhelmingly positive, pointing to the product’s success in the coming years.

Q-Lab is currently developing several other exciting products across different segments of its product line. In addition to its focus on reliability and design simplicity for new products, the firm remains dedicated to enhancing the reliability, performance, and user-friendliness of its existing testers. It has a strong international presence, with locations in England, Germany, and China, and distributors in over 80 countries. Its ongoing expansions in Westlake, Ohio, reflect its commitment to delivering high-quality, reliable, and cost-effective machines across the world. As they like to say, “At Q-Lab, we make testing simple.”