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What is Customer Usage Profiling?

CUP is a method to measure and record how consumers use products in a normal operating environmentCUP involves making physical measurements of mechanical systems (temperature, force, displacement, speed, strain, pressure, time, frequency, etc)Ideally, CUP does not involve the customer’s knowledge that he/she is being recorded

ITI's Customer Usage Profiling (CUP) process defines product performance while in the hands of the customer. Direct measurements and statistical analysis remove the guesswork from product development. Usage profiling allows our clients to design and manufacture products with specific reliability, durability, and quality targets.

ITI Customer Usage Profiling Process


ITI offers a range of data acquisition tests and related data collection equipment, along with the ability to manage the data with custom data management solutions or integration you’re your existing test information systems. ITI will custom-equip instrumentation and data acquisition systems including sensor and cabling ruggedization and environmental protection. To ensure natural use, some CUP tests provide automatic data capture and uploading with sensors and data acquisition hidden from view -- in some cases with users being completely autonomous. Tests may include on-board, miniature, battery powered computers for long-term data storage. A trigger system turns the computer on and off. Data stored in the computer can be readily downloaded for analysis as the test requires.

ITI’s Customer Usage Profiling process is shown as below. Major steps include:

1.Plan Project
a)What product and how many
b)How many channels and what kind of measurements?
c)How long will the product remain in the field at one time?
d)Who will use the product for the study?

2.Instrument Product
a)Develop and package sensors and data acquisition equipment
b)Perform trial usage tests to verify overall system operation and robustness

3.Deploy Product Into Field
a)Prepare detailed schedule for product usage by customers
b)Gather field data by circulating instrumented product(s) among customers

4.Reduce Data to Useful Information
a)Develop custom data reduction software
b)Analyze field data to draw useful conclusion  

What we offer


We will work with customer side by side to help customer establish the customer usage profiling process, at the same time, transfer the knowhow to customer to really help customer to be successful.


Benefits to Customers


Rather than guess about how products are used (and abused) in the real world, manufacturers can get representative and accurate measures of their products in use. Once these data are analyzed, statistical information is used to help guide next generation product designs and manufacturing. This information allows products to be characterized more accurately, in contrast to relying on outdated engineering judgment or reference data.


CUP saves our clients costs associated with:


Materials -- Decrease the likelihood of product/component under or over-designing in the early development stages.
Resources -- Decrease or eliminate the need to solve problems of products released to market and associated rework efforts
Liability -- Anticipate and eliminate potential high risk problem areas and scenarios
Warranties --- Locate system/component weaknesses and adjust design and manufacturing plans accordingly