Testing in the incremental design and development of complex products

Abstract

Testing is an important aspect of design and development which consumes significant time and resource in many companies. However, it has received less research attention than many other activities in product development, and especially, very few publications report empirical studies of engineering testing. Such studies are needed to establish the importance of testing and inform the development of pragmatic support methods. This paper combines insights from literature study with findings from three empirical studies of testing. The case studies concern incrementally developed complex products in the automotive domain. A description of testing practice as observed in these studies is provided, confirming that testing activities are used for multiple purposes depending on the context, and are intertwined with design from start to finish of the development process, not done after it as many models depict. Descriptive process models are developed to indicate some of the key insights, and opportunities for further research are suggested.

Planning and communicating prototype tests for the Nano Membrane Toilet: A critical review and proposed visual tool

“…Additionally, its generalisation to be used in a variety of PD projects is part of an ongoing qualitative study which seeks to collect knowledge of experts in the field of prototype testing, in order to develop a more universally applicable version of the tool. The presented version is based on existing academic literature, but a lot of expertise about testing in PD remains in the realm of (anecdotal) knowledge of engineering practice (Tahera et al, 2019). Therefore, we invite readers with expertise in these fields to complement the above-mentioned study by commenting either on this article directly or by contacting the corresponding author.…”

“…It is common to develop software user interfaces iteratively (Nielsen, 1993). For complex physical products, every iteration-step of building and testing a prototype can be associated with high costs (Tahera et al, 2019). It is therefore important to consider when and how many iteration-steps should be undertaken.…”

“…the how long the product can be used until repairs become more expensive than replacing it (Garvin, 1996). In other words, "durability is a particular aspect of reliability" (Tahera et al, 2019). This implies that, while the calculation of durability will involve repair costs and other economic factors, the durability tests to assess likelihood of failure will often be similar or identical to reliability tests.…”

“…Tronvoll et al (2017) write about the use of prototypes: "A prototype experiment often targets generating knowledge about different attributes of a proposed design which is not identified by simple reflection." Similarly, the IEEE (1990) gives a definition of testing, shared by (Tahera et al, 2019), as "an activity in which a system or component is executed under specific conditions, the results are observed or recorded, and an evaluation is made of some aspect of the system or component." In combination, we define prototype testing as knowledgegenerating activity in which a prototype is executed under defined conditions, the results are observed or recorded, and an evaluation is made of some attributes of the prototype.…”

Testing and PLM: Connecting Process and Product Models in Product Development

“…The second piece of research [4,5] examines more closely how testing activities can be explicitly integrated into the product development process for complex engineering products. This research highlights the mismatch between several models of product development which tend to relegate testing to be an activity late in the design process or primarily concerned with quality issues.…”