A test framework allows the developer/team to produce the test solutions faster. The developers would be aware of various placeholders in the test framework where they can fit their test requirements' logic quickly. So how can we benefit from a framework for testing specifically in manufacturing?
What is a framework?
Simply see it as a software blueprint. It's very typical that the first-of-its-kind project will take a longer time to develop and then the following projects of the same kind can be quickly developed because we have the blueprint of the first project. If we generalize the common items in the first project and subsequent projects as baselines for any further project, those generalized common items become a framework for any further projects to develop & deliver faster.
Why do we need a framework for the Manufacturing test?
After a point of time in a manufacturing environment, when you have the first few test machines and plan to expand the manufacturing facility, then it becomes visible to you to have a framework.
A framework would enable the developer team to keep delivering various project and production needs.
Developers don't spend their valuable time reinventing the wheel in each project but make use of the out-of-box features from the framework.
All the features (wheels) that used to invent before would have been available from the framework out-of-the-box.
As a thumb-of-rule to standardize, having a framework can allow us to develop and deliver the projects at a much faster rate than a first-of-its-kind project.
So having a framework is better for expanding a facility that needs standardization.
Is it always a ground-up?
Not necessarily.! Most of the time, there would be an existing set of blocks (codes) with the team, and the team would have various components lying around and reuse them on a need basis. In such a scenario, it's about finding the various repeated components which can boil down into a central structure to be called a framework.
In some cases, there would be an adoption of a new tool for manufacturing tests (for eg. LabVIEW, TestStand, Python, Lua, etc) in the team, in which the existing engineers have less expertise on these tools. In such cases, it needs the ground up with help of experts like Makkal.
Can we learn and teach the existing framework?
Yes, we can and we should study and document the existing framework.
We should learn the existing framework for knowing its abilities, very good chance that features that we're trying to implement in a framework is already in there. It's also good for finding the right feature additions we want to build in the framework so that serves unmet needs and future needs.
Each team needs different types of test frameworks, which could be excavated from existing solutions and made shout-out-loud to the engineers around to follow the framework.
Makkal provides test engineering help to bring up a world-class framework that any current team can find themselves and future teams can adapt easily
At Makkal we support clients to bring up the test framework from the ground as well as improve the existing framework to develop/debug/fix/deliver at a much better speed.