Product Engineering Services for Appliances and HVAC

Did you ever wonder why some of your appliances last longer than others? Or why one product performs better than its competitor? Our UL Solutions Product Engineering Services team in Newton, Iowa, have been answering those questions and more since 2008.

The Product Engineering Services team was founded in the heart of America’s Midwest by a group of engineers from Maytag. These entrepreneurs decided to pool their talent and expertise to offer testing services to manufacturers that were interested in learning how their products performed over their expected life cycle.

Comprised of consumer scientists, engineers of various disciplines (electrical, mechanical, reliability and software) and technicians, the Product Engineering Services team offers a variety of services to complement our traditional core business, including engineering advisory, performance and reliability engineering, and energy efficiency services.

The UL Solutions campus in Iowa consists of two buildings: a laboratory where major appliances, such as clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers, cooking, pool pumps, and refrigeration equipment are evaluated for performance, efficiency, and reliability. This location is equipped with environmental chambers that create various heat, cold and humidity conditions for evaluating appliances. It also includes a semi-anechoic sound room able to measure frequency in A, C, Z, and sone, as well as a combustion laboratory with six test stations to handle your gas and electric HVAC testing needs for water heaters, furnaces and boilers. The second building at this campus is a fire containment laboratory for the evaluation of appliances, burn testing, or any high-risk testing.

Early-in-life failures can lead to product returns or warranty costs, and premature wear-out failures can damage brand equity and prevent repeat purchases.

We work with you during product development/onboarding and production to evaluate design or supplier changes, help you determine the root cause of reliability problems. Our services help you gain actionable knowledge about the anticipated life cycle of your products and identify design flaws that have adverse effects on a product’s reliability and durability.

Accelerated life testing helps retailers and manufacturers evaluate their products’ performance and reduce the potential for replacements or product failures that could result in warranty claims. Our cordless drill accelerated life testing service at our Newton laboratory tests your products under a variety of conditions to help identify potential weaknesses in design before your drills go into production.

Test methods include:

• Speed testing to measure performance under load
• Torque testing for stress testing
• Voltage testing at different levels
• Temperature testing for performance under extreme conditions

UL Solutions engineers and consumer scientists will work with your team to develop customized benchmarking studies (e.g., performance characteristics, efficiency and consumer convenience, installation, serviceability, packaging design and cleanability) to understand how your product performs in the market.

Our Marketing Claim Verification service helps companies demonstrate that their marketing and advertising claims are accurate, truthful and credible. The UL Verified Mark can be used on packaging and collateral and will appear in our database (searchable by brand, company name, product name and unique identifier) to help differentiate your products in a crowded market.

Our Newton team offers a variety of independent advisory and engineering services that can help customers succeed in the marketplace.