A new breed of smart depot testers using COTS technology

The most difficult and time consuming portion of depot repair is the diagnostic element (fault isolation). The writing of troubleshooting procedures and/or diagnostic flow charts and programs for automatic test equipment is an extremely labor intensive and expensive process. As a result of these high costs, the depot service environment is characterized by unique testers with specialized test programs usually written by the product designer staff. This has led to many depots for different products in countries all over the world which are inefficient to operate and do not produce the potential profitability dictated by this huge marketplace. Major advances in technology have opened up this market to enterprising high technology companies. This paper defines that opportunity, the technologies which make it possible, and a specific COTS approach to depot tester design.