Integrating virtual and physical testing to accelerate the engineering product development process

Abstract

Testing is essential in developing a successful complex engineering product. System level integration and testing can use between 35% and 50% of development resources. External factors such as legislation and customer requirements drive essential testing whilst internal factors such company experience, affordability and organizational practice profoundly affect the overall testing plan. The main objective of this paper is to understand how testing is integrated into the product development process and how different types of testing are scheduled across the stages of product development. The paper reports a case study in a diesel engine company where the balance of virtual and physical testing is a key concern in reducing design time and cost. Integrating physical and virtual testing is more than process optimization of time and cost. It contributes to recasting the design process in response to changes in customer requirements as well as to design changes which arise during testing. The importance of dependencies across components, subsystems and tests is highlighted using a model using Design Structure Matrices and the advantages of integrating physical and virtual testing are analysed particularly in facilitating task overlap to reduce product development duration.

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

“…An example is Lean Six Sigma, a now established concept itself, which combines the two management methodologies 'Lean' -a methodology to "remove non-value activities from the [PD] process" and 'Six Sigma' -a methodology to reduce variability and thus defects and errors in the process of concern (Alexander et al, 2019). Furthermore, since the dawn of computer aided engineering, a combination of virtual and physical testing has been (Van Der Auweraer & Leuridan, 2005) and continues to be promoted by experts (Tahera et al, 2014). Likewise, the testing practice in private enterprises is likely to be more experience-based and will often combine various concepts to varying degrees.…”

“…their fidelity (Mccurdy et al, 2006). Another important distinction of different categories of prototypes is between virtual and physical prototypes, and the use of virtual prototypes, or simulations, has increasingly gained importance in the past decades (Tahera et al, 2014). However, as the complicated interactions between the sub-products of a complex product will often be too difficult to simulate, this paper is focused on the testing of physical prototypes, as opposed to "the solution of analytical models and numerical approximations" (Boës et al, 2017).…”

Design margins: a hidden issue in industry

“…For a finished product, margins can be established through testing or potentially through simulation. However, in current industrial practice most products are tested to establish that they are capable of meeting their requirements in the specified way (Tahera et al 2014). The actual margins of the component can be revealed through expensive destructive testing.…”

A Method for Improving Overlapping of Testing and Design

“…In the worst case, development costs may increase and product quality may worsen [4]. Several studies have been completed on how to optimize the overlapping process in terms of time and cost trade-offs [2], [26], [29], [30], measuring the effectiveness of overlapping activities [31], a conceptual framework for managing overlapping [3], [4], [32], [33], and assessing risks and uncertainties in overlapping process [28], [34].…”