Test Equipment Utilization Improvement

Average Utilization Before Sente: The "Before Sente" bar represents the aggregated average asset utilization of Sente's installed customer base prior to installing a Sente Test Resource Management™ (TRM) solution.

Average Utilization, Previous Quarter: The latest quarter bar represents the aggregated average utilization achieved by Sente customers that have been using a TRM solution for at least one year.

Current Utilization Performance: More than 4X improvement

In high-tech industries, where testing is a mission-critical function, test equipment asset utilization is a critical measure of efficiency and productivity.

But utilization ranges from 5% to 20% in a typical company's engineering environment, where 70% of enterprise test equipment cost resides. At any given time, as much as 95% of a company's test equipment assets are sitting idle.

Utilization: A Critical, but Often Misunderstood Metric

In over 15 years providing solutions to customers, Sente has worked with many companies who were far off the mark in their assessments of equipment utilization: they estimated 40% to 90%, when the reality was 10% to 20%.

A quick and simple example of a flawed utilization method follows. In several well-known organizations that have implemented test equipment asset management initiatives – including some that have been publicly recognized for achieving "standard-setting" asset utilization levels – a piece of equipment is counted as "utilized" when it is deployed out of an equipment pool. By this definition, a piece of equipment stationed at (or near) a test bench is considered utilized. After all, the sign-out sheet, local spreadsheet or the report from the central asset database says it is.

But this is clearly not true. And the fact is, if you lack accurate utilization data, you cannot manage utilization effectively. Measurements that seem to indicate high utilization often mask significant waste just below the surface that increases human and equipment capital costs while thwarting schedules.

When you work with Sente, we apply proprietary algorithms that give you a much more accurate picture of utilization in your company. Our solutions include a broad array of measurable, real-time metrics that work in concert with the utilization metrics to produce industry-leading total cost reductions.