Methodologies for Maximizing Utilization of Test Lab 2015-01-2550

In Aerospace Industry, the major challenge is to meet the safety and quality of subsystem / system elements to comply with the standards defined by regulatory authorities for product certification. Engineering test labs are created to provide such precision oriented test platforms ranging from component level to fully integrated test labs/test systems, standalone or distributed network. Even after massive initial capital investment and with the evolution of technologies followed by principles of practice in establishing test facilities, industry is facing open challenges in meeting the performance parameters like productivity, optimum usage, accessibility, monitoring, control and ease of maintenance to list a few. It's very important to standardize the test facilities to optimize time to market and reduce the product cost.

This paper discusses test infrastructure architectural factors to setup Seamless, Reliable, Available, Globally Accessible and Remotely Manageable Test Labs. The factors considered are: Remote management and control of the power, temperature and other environmental factors using low cost COTS controller cards; Remote monitoring of the health of the test sub systems; Secure remote access tools for remote sharing and management; Wake on LAN for remote-startup of the IT test systems; Low cost Robotic technology for handling physical test inputs in the lab and for vision e.g. moving any parts, turning knobs, pressing buttons, capturing live video etc.; and Network security features such as Port Blocking, Private/Virtual LAN for ensuring security compliance in IT test systems.

Benefits of deploying the key enablers of product development like Lean management [1], Knowledge management, Re-use, Intuitive thinking, Policy enforcements and Surveys are also discussed in this paper. Product development can be expedited with these specific approaches setting stage for enterprise level benefits in terms of cost and time yet maintaining the quality.