Improving Product Reliability and Software Quality, 2nd Edition

21Design Validation Phase

In the previous phase, the schematics, bill of materials, and outline drawings needed to design the product were developed. In addition, functional prototypes exist. Now, in the design validation phase, the functional prototypes are tested to verify that the design conforms to specification. This is the final opportunity to identify design, quality, reliability, manufacturing, test, and supplier issues before the design is released for production. Identifying all the design‐related problems takes a cohesive effort between manufacturing engineering, test engineering, reliability, and design engineering to fully evaluate the design. At this point in time, all of these functional groups are working on the program in the design validation phase. Each has different concerns regarding the reliability of the product. Everyone is diligently working to resolve any remaining risk issues prior to production release. Manufacturing is validating special tooling and assembly processes for rampability. Test engineering is checking out test hardware, software, and test fixtures. Reliability is stressing the product to understand how it will fail. Engineering is testing prototypes to validate that the design meets the concept requirements with margin. The majority of the design problems (bugs) are identified in this phase.

This is engineering's last opportunity to identify and fix design‐related problems before shipping the product to the customer. Once the product is ...