siliconindia | | NOVEMBER 20199sub-system and component. Therefore, it is very important to give testing process the same amount of attention as the other process during product development.Testing in the Industrial SetupTesting in a company is dependent upon the internal and external factors. The internal factors comprise of various product features (physical and functional), system architecture and novelty or difference in design; these influence the product that is tested and how it is tested. The external factors are associated with compliance and regulations that basically determine the type of testing process that the company and the industry as a whole has to follow.An enterprise can classify the testing process to assess the reliability, durability and functioning of the products. The tests for these parameters help to determine if the products are in optimum condition to perform the defined operations without failure over a definite period of time. The testing team generally uses the statistical analysis to quantify the variation of the design and manufacturing capability. This helps the manufacture to design the product keeping in mind how it will be used in real time and predict the acceptable life of the new line of products. Decision on the Type of TestingEnterprises often have to make a choice between or balance the component, sub-system level and system level testing. While component and sub-system level testing facilitate parallel examining and quick detection of the fault in the product, system level testing assesses the entire module keeping in consideration its specifications, uncertain interference and break down that impact the system as a whole. This is an important decision as it influences the number of tests and also impacts the time to perform them. The testing team also has to take a call on whether to go with virtual or physical testing and while some engineers believe that a physical test will present more thorough test data; there are other who opine that this form of testing is inefficient especially with respect to reliability of data. Also, this test can tackle only limited variables and is not always comprehensive enough to cover for all the conditions in which the product functions in real-time. Lastly, physical testing is conducted in a controlled environment that limits the range of simulations. Virtual testing, on the other hand, follows a computer aided engineering (CAE) model that can cover a wide spectrum of the product functionalities. However, the modelling has to be precise for the simulations and it is often difficult to correlate virtual test data with the real-world performance results. Not to forget that due to lack of thorough use-cases the CAE model, undetected flaws can occur later on in the product development stages. Lastly, this form of testing requires specialized training to handle the complex models and the necessary softwares here can be expensive impacting the overall cost of the products.Testing across Various StagesIn the early design stage, testing is done to verify the concept, understand the specification, product analysis and examine the substitute concepts. Analysis is performed to ensure feasibility and compliance of product's performance, reliability and durability against customer specifications.During the detailed design stage, the testing focuses on verification of requirements, performance analysis as well as the reliability and durability of the design. This stage deals with the physical objects and their corresponding virtual designs to analyze various physical factors.While making changes in the design, the companies have to keep the customers' feedback and the regulatory norms in mind. Since the alterations can be urgent, virtual testing is more feasible as compared to the more effort and cost consuming physical testing. The changes can remove some of the earlier testing but can also introduce new examinations. Managing these fluctuations and assessing their impact on the product is crucial for an engineering company.There is No Substitute for Being ThoroughTesting and measurement in engineering services are critical to the successful development of a good quality product. The careful balance between virtual and physical testing is essential in reducing the design time and costs. Also, testing has to be thorough across components and subsystems and needs to be carefully planned without missing a note. Integrating testing also goes beyond process optimization of time and cost and can make the design and development processes more efficient leaving no room for error. Testing and measurement in engineering services are critical to the successful development of a good quality product
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