Preface
Systems testing is carried out one way or another in all development and manufacturing projects, but seldom is this done in a truly organized manner and no book currently available describes the process in a comprehensive and implementable form. Along the same line of thinking, virtually no systems Verification, Validation, and Testing (VVT) research is conducted throughout the academic world. This is especially odd, since some 50–60 percent of a systems development cost is expended on either performing VVT activities or correcting system defects during the development process or during the life of the developed product.
This book attempts to put together a comprehensive compendium of VVT activities and corresponding VVT methods for implementation throughout the entire lifecycle of systems (i.e. Definition, Design, Implementation, Integration, Qualification, Production, Use/Maintenance and Disposal). In addition, the book strives to alleviate the fundamental testing conundrum, namely: What should be tested? How should one test? When should one test? And, when should one stop testing? In other words, how should one select a VVT strategy and how should it be optimized? Although early quality pioneers (e.g., Juran in the 1950s) proposed a conceptual quality cost model, no one proposed a quantitative and credible model which can be used to answer the above questions. This book provides such a model, together with data from a real-life project, which show significant potential ...