Petrie Ltd

Once equipment has been manufactured, we normally expect to conduct some degree of Functional Testing prior to delivery of the equipment to the client’s premises. Functional Testing may be as simple as a standard inspection of the equipment or as complicated as fully integrated product trials conducted over an extended period of time.

Teams of Engineers from both NIS and Petrie work together using an agreed Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) plan to ensure that the equipment supplied is not only fully compliant with the client’s process requirements but that it also meets all relevant safety and emission standards.

Depending upon the nature of the equipment and other practical considerations, functional testing may include some, or all of the following elements:

• Simple power test to confirm operation of fan motors and drive motors.

• Part or full assembly of equipment sections – typically done with larger conveyorised machines using friction drive systems.

• Connection of Microwave or RF Generators to confirm communication and control via central PLC.

• Pre-tuning trials – typically done with RF systems where the RF circuit is tuned statically using a placebo load.

• Microwave distribution tests.

• Trials using real product to refine tuning of the equipment to suit (as close as possible) to genuine product conditions – this is mainly done to save valuable time on site and ensure that the equipment quickly reaches peak performance after it has been installed.

• Integrated trials with third party equipment – where it is essential for equipment supplied by Petrie/NIS to work seamlessly with existing or new equipment supplied by our clients, there is often a benefit from conducting integrated trials. In these cases, the third party equipment is delivered to our test area and built up to mimic the work area at the client’s premises.