Abstract :
Decreasing the often lengthy Test Program Set (TPS) development time is a high priority for both DoD and commercial industry. A protracted test development time for a commercial product can make or break its success. It can impact time-to-market goals for a product, which in turn, can result in a loss of market share. Though the DoD world has different objectives, they, too, are concerned with long test development times which can increase costs and jeopardize a weapon system´s mission readiness. The case study for this paper is a test system developed by BAE Systems in less than four months to meet a commercial customer´s stringent schedule requirements. The factors that contributed to the success of this project are examined, as is their relevance to the DoD world. The desire is to apply relevant lessons learned from the commercial industry to DoD programs, yielding a decrease in TPS development time
Keywords :
automatic test equipment; automatic test software; peripheral interfaces; production testing; COTS hardware; COTS software; DoD programs; GPIB card; TPS delivery; commercial industry; decreased development time; instrument drivers; loss of market share; stringent schedule requirements; test station software; time-to-market goals; weapon system; Contracts; Electronic equipment testing; Hardware; Instruments; Proposals; Radio frequency; Software testing; Switches; System testing; Time to market;
