The Client
Based in Michigan, US, the client is an internationally recognized provider and manufacturer of cockpit electronics products and connected car solutions. With offices all over the world and more than 11,000 employees in total, the company has established a healthy presence on the global market and thanks to the rapid growth in the cockpit electronics market, seeks to further their expansion.
The Situation
In a strategic move to fortify their positions on the cockpit electronics market as well as break new grounds, the client develops a so-called cluster – a high-tech device designed to improve the driver’s experience. There are three components to the device – mechanics, hardware and software. At the point Quality House is contacted, the device has entered its final production phase right before the start of production with the mechanics and hardware completed, but the software in need for thorough testing. The software integrates numerous functionalities such as a speedometer, a limiter, a service Interval, TellTales, warnings, a trip computer, night vision and navigation – all of which have to perform seamlessly.
The Challenge
This project distinguishes itself for the sole reason the project concerned itself with a device and testing software for a specific hardware differs significantly from testing web-based and mobile software. What further elevated the difficulty was the numbers of functionalities to be integrated – up to 80 in total. This many functionalities interact in predictable ways and the Quality House team had limited time to familiarize itself with the project’s intricacies. The project’s deadlines were breakneck and this complicated cooperation between all the teams, which were located in different time zones.
The Objective
With the start of production planned in the near future, the client tasked Quality House with the design and execution of a comprehensive testing solution to test the device’s performance, determine response times and guarantee a complete integration of the device’s functionalities. The device operates in real time and calls for immediate reaction in the fraction of a second to ensure the driver’s safety. To this end, Quality House had to remove all bugs, errors and lags in response time.
The Solution
In approach, Quality House didn’t stray from its tried-and-tested process of a specifications review as the foundation to creating a test environment and automating test scripts, which we used to identify and report defects. The large team performed Acceptance Testing, Functional Testing, Data Integrity Testing, Performance Profiling Testing, Configuration Testing, Long Term Testing and User Interface Testing. What differed was the technology and tools used as the main tool to set values and manage what the device displays. RTC served as the bug tracking system and Collaborator was used to review all specifications.
Solid organization and team work smoothed along the work process and what allowed us to consolidate all effort was positioning 90% of the team in a single location during the final 3-month mark. This decision provided crucial resources, motivation and communication to meet the client’s deadline and requirements.
Solid organization and team work smoothed along the work process and what allowed us to consolidate all effort was positioning 90% of the team in a single location during the final 3-month mark. This decision provided crucial resources, motivation and communication to meet the client’s deadline and requirements.
The Conclusion
Quality House completed the project in time and covered 98% of the client’s requirements, which led to the device entering production according to the client’s manufacturing schedule. In the end, we successfully executed all automated test cases, run through specific programs and cameras for image capturing the hardware device. The client was satisfied with the results and now the device has been successfully introduced on the market to great reception.