Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) Expert Witness

Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) Expert

Functional test of equipment, machinery and software includes verification, validation, repeatability, reproducibility, life and highly-accelerated life testing.

Verification and validation are generally discussed together. Verification is the process of determining if a design meets its requirements. Validation is the process of determining if the designers were working to the right requirements. As an example consider a project to double productivity at a bottling plant. The plant manager directs the project team to design a conveyor belt that is twice as fast as the existing one. Verification confirms the new conveyor belt is twice as fast the old one. Validation confirms the productivity at the plant has now doubled. It is sometimes said that validation tests that you built the right thing; while verification tests that you built the thing right.

Repeatability and reproducibility generally go together and are sometimes called Gauge R&R. Repeatability is the variation between multiple measurements conducted by the same operator. Reproducibility is the variability in measurement due to different operators.

Life testing tests the item under its typical usage scenario over and over until something fails. Then a failure analysis may be conducted to try to “weed-out” the weak links. Accelerated lift testing and Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) increase the loads on the system to induce failures. This type of testing is usually conducted on items that are expected to last years or even decades because standard life testing is not practical.

I have extensive experience with automatic test equipment and can support you litigation efforts in that regard as an automatic test equipment (ATE) expert witness. My qualifications include numerous peer-reviewed publications and over twenty-five years of engineering experience. 

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