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AutoTestCon 2008 takes place at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City during the week of Sept. 8, 2008.
We are writing this before the conference or exhibit so we do not know
what to expect. We can only guess.
According to the preliminary figures the booth spaces are all sold
out. The conference paper sessions are all filled with great
papers from around the military, commercial and even foreign
authors. So the conference should bring the message that despite
what now appears to be a global recession, test is in tact - even if
it is not thriving. Certainly there is a need to support
avionics and weapon systems that are aging, and not much has been
spent developing new aircraft or weapon systems. Military
dollars previously spent on such new aircraft are now spent on
munitions and other low tech stuff.
As bad as all this seems, AutoTestCon caters to test engineers who
are better off than their colleagues in the commercial world.
While avionics boxes MUST be properly tested and supported, cell
phones and computers can be tossed in the trash when they stop working
- especially if that occurs a couple of years after they become
state-of-the-art. For manufacturers of commercial high tech,
test is not a support function. It is merely a way to check
whether the manufacturing process created defects - Yes or No.
Even if it turns out that the test incorrectly makes this
determination, exchanging a faulty unit for a new one, generally is an
acceptable solution. This leaves test engineers feeling
unnecessary and often unwanted. With the high unemployment and
housing crisis, test engineers who work do not want to rock the
boat. They do what they need to. Well, what else should
they be doing?
Test engineers are professionals who (hopefully) chose this
profession because they truly care whether the electronic products
work properly when they are in the customer's hands. This basic
tenet of our profession must be shared by all of us. So what can
we say to those non-test people who tell us that it makes better
business sense to sell it on time as is and fix it later? (It
doesn't make better business sense, but it does have to be delivered
on time.)
There is one way we can have early delivery and a comprehensive
test. Design testable circuits and your test will get done
faster and it will be more thorough. I doubt there are many
readers who disagree with this, and may even yawn reading it because
they find it obvious. A no brainer. Well, then how many
companies practice Design for Testability (DFT)? Sure,
more-and-more designers use JTAG/IEEE-1149.1 boundary scan parts, but
that is mainly because there are more such parts available - and often
the only way some ICs are available. Do designers actually
decide to seek boundary scan equivalents of components they use?
Not often. Do they ask test engineers to advice them?
Seldom. Do managers have a meeting with designers and test
engineers asking them to work together on DFT? Not
likely.
Why aren't managers part of the solution? There is no one
more interested in getting a comprehensively tested product out the
door on time than the manager, yet they do not actively support DFT.
Do they passively support it? To some degree. A test
engineer asking for a budget to buy boundary scan tools or to add
boundary scan features into an ATE will probably have some
success. This same engineer asking to work with and/or review
the design early in the design phase and as it is progressing will
likely be told in polite (or impolite) terms to mind his/her own
business and keep his hands out of the design. First the
designer will complain, then the manager will and in such hard
economic times who can blame the test engineer for backing off?
This year, AutoTestCon has devoted a number of papers to DFT and
regardless of the attendance figures, I will consider it one of the
most successful test events in many years. The conference will
have an entire session devoted to Testability and
Diagnosability. It features papers that came from members of the
Testability Management Action Group (TMAG). As founding
President of TMAG, I am admittedly biased and consider those papers to
be top notch. TMAG will also have a Panel where test
professionals can come to share their experiences with TMAG
leaders. While we will listen to problems, we will also have a
set of success stories from Dennis Hecht about how well DFT has worked
for Boeing.
Undoubtedly, management needs to wake up to the benefits and needs
of DFT. TMAG will help anyone trying to establish or promote DFT
in their companies. It is a group of test engineers who are
preparing answers to objections. It is a group that is
collecting testimonials, resources, technical papers, information on
tools, and literature. TMAG recently helped the Surface Mount
Technology Association with its Testability Guidelines. TMAG can
also help you. They will be at AutoTestCon and you can always
find them at www.TMAG4DFT.org.
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