Software testing is key when deploying and managing any Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. Bla Sweeney at Keysight Technologies shares three important aspects to consider.
Embracing test automation for PLM software increases testing efficiency and frees teams up to focus on other important work, hitting release dates earlier and enhancing agility.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems support vital functions throughout successful high-tech manufacturing, software, and electronics companies.
Initially beneficial for engineering teams, PLM now benefits every department involved in a product’s lifecycle by providing the right information in a timely fashion and assisting in production, planning, control, and revenue strategies.
Just as the ripple effect of PLM’s benefits can be felt throughout an organisation, any deployment errors can have a widespread negative impact on business operations.
So it’s vital that PLM software is installed, configured, and integrated correctly.
This means that software testing is key when it comes to deploying and managing any PLM system, with three important aspects to consider.
1. Establishing accuracy throughout the PLM landscape
Firstly, to ensure that the PLM system configurations and custom business logic work as expected, accurate execution is essential.
This isn’t only about configuration and testing of the core PLM system.
The PLM system’s behaviour, logic and data will be integrated into other parts of the ecosystem, so ensuring these integrations are consistent and that the values and triggered logic inside these third-party systems behave correctly are critical.
Deploying a PLM system should ensure consistency, with a data point only being entered once and then referenced across every system.
2. Ensuring consistency during changes, updates and upgrades
Secondly, changes to PLM logic or supporting systems have the potential to introduce data errors, which can rapidly cause supply chain and compliance problems.
System updates, new features and security patches mean newer versions of the PLM system and third-party systems must be installed, with the impact not always clear.
Hence the need for confirmation and validation, usually via regression testing, before changes can go into production.
3. Maintaining performance and availability to optimise usability
Thirdly, it is often the case that a large number of users depend on PLM system capabilities, so it’s vital to know that a deployed system will support the load and needs for the expected volume of users.
Lack of availability or slow response times can reduce productivity and become frustrating for users.
Once a system is seen to be capable of supporting the load and needs of users, proactive monitoring is needed to detect performance regressions and availability dropouts, and ensure continued functionality and user satisfaction.
Solving the challenges of PLM testing
With PLM systems made up of such an intricate mix of applications in diverse environments, rigorous testing is needed to ensure software quality.
But this is time consuming, and it can feel less important compared with testing customer-facing software.
So how can the vital but often frustrating amount of time spent on PLM testing and validation be cut down?
Right now, tests that cover both initial deployment and ongoing regression scenarios are generally carried out manually.
Even automated regression testing relies on manual processes.
With the significant costs and delays involved in manual testing, not to mention the more limited test coverage, there’s no denying it makes sense to move from a manual testing strategy to an automated one.
Automating the entire PLM testing process
Embracing test automation for PLM software increases testing efficiency and frees teams up to focus on other important work, hitting release dates earlier and enhancing agility.
Testing PLM processes in design and manufacturing industries is especially challenging thanks to the graphical nature of design applications, along with the complex and wide-ranging additional systems involved.
In embracing the full power of Eggplant Test, customers have seen outcomes including turning 15 days of manual testing into an overnight test.
They have moved from completing a 10-hour test event every three days to running a 24-hour test every day.
Experienced testers with little automation experience have also embraced the solution and shared their appreciation at how it improved the way they work.
Eggplant Test from Keysight, enables end-to-end testing to replicate the perspective of a real user.
Automation and visual verification can be undertaken no matter how much visual complexity is involved, from interacting with sliders and pop-ups to counting holes on a bracket.
Any platform or technology, including web, mobile, native apps, custom apps, PDF documents, IIoT and ARKit can be tested.
No connection to the object (or API) layer is needed, so studying the app’s code structure isn’t required.
Tests are designed to reflect users’ interactions with the applications.
Tags: byline, commentary, interviews, Keysight, opinion, software, Tech Focus, technology, testing
This entry was posted on Friday, September 27th, 2024 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Business IT, Keysight, Opinion, Software, Tech Focus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tech Focus: Three Critical Considerations for Successful Product Lifecycle Management Testing
Software testing is key when deploying and managing any Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. Bla Sweeney at Keysight Technologies shares three important aspects to consider.
Embracing test automation for PLM software increases testing efficiency and frees teams up to focus on other important work, hitting release dates earlier and enhancing agility.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems support vital functions throughout successful high-tech manufacturing, software, and electronics companies.
Initially beneficial for engineering teams, PLM now benefits every department involved in a product’s lifecycle by providing the right information in a timely fashion and assisting in production, planning, control, and revenue strategies.
Just as the ripple effect of PLM’s benefits can be felt throughout an organisation, any deployment errors can have a widespread negative impact on business operations.
So it’s vital that PLM software is installed, configured, and integrated correctly.
This means that software testing is key when it comes to deploying and managing any PLM system, with three important aspects to consider.
1. Establishing accuracy throughout the PLM landscape
Firstly, to ensure that the PLM system configurations and custom business logic work as expected, accurate execution is essential.
This isn’t only about configuration and testing of the core PLM system.
The PLM system’s behaviour, logic and data will be integrated into other parts of the ecosystem, so ensuring these integrations are consistent and that the values and triggered logic inside these third-party systems behave correctly are critical.
Deploying a PLM system should ensure consistency, with a data point only being entered once and then referenced across every system.
2. Ensuring consistency during changes, updates and upgrades
Secondly, changes to PLM logic or supporting systems have the potential to introduce data errors, which can rapidly cause supply chain and compliance problems.
System updates, new features and security patches mean newer versions of the PLM system and third-party systems must be installed, with the impact not always clear.
Hence the need for confirmation and validation, usually via regression testing, before changes can go into production.
3. Maintaining performance and availability to optimise usability
Thirdly, it is often the case that a large number of users depend on PLM system capabilities, so it’s vital to know that a deployed system will support the load and needs for the expected volume of users.
Lack of availability or slow response times can reduce productivity and become frustrating for users.
Once a system is seen to be capable of supporting the load and needs of users, proactive monitoring is needed to detect performance regressions and availability dropouts, and ensure continued functionality and user satisfaction.
Solving the challenges of PLM testing
With PLM systems made up of such an intricate mix of applications in diverse environments, rigorous testing is needed to ensure software quality.
About the Author: Bla Sweeney is product marketing manager at Keysight Technologies.
But this is time consuming, and it can feel less important compared with testing customer-facing software.
So how can the vital but often frustrating amount of time spent on PLM testing and validation be cut down?
Right now, tests that cover both initial deployment and ongoing regression scenarios are generally carried out manually.
Even automated regression testing relies on manual processes.
With the significant costs and delays involved in manual testing, not to mention the more limited test coverage, there’s no denying it makes sense to move from a manual testing strategy to an automated one.
Automating the entire PLM testing process
Embracing test automation for PLM software increases testing efficiency and frees teams up to focus on other important work, hitting release dates earlier and enhancing agility.
Testing PLM processes in design and manufacturing industries is especially challenging thanks to the graphical nature of design applications, along with the complex and wide-ranging additional systems involved.
In embracing the full power of Eggplant Test, customers have seen outcomes including turning 15 days of manual testing into an overnight test.
They have moved from completing a 10-hour test event every three days to running a 24-hour test every day.
Experienced testers with little automation experience have also embraced the solution and shared their appreciation at how it improved the way they work.
Eggplant Test from Keysight, enables end-to-end testing to replicate the perspective of a real user.
Automation and visual verification can be undertaken no matter how much visual complexity is involved, from interacting with sliders and pop-ups to counting holes on a bracket.
Any platform or technology, including web, mobile, native apps, custom apps, PDF documents, IIoT and ARKit can be tested.
No connection to the object (or API) layer is needed, so studying the app’s code structure isn’t required.
Tests are designed to reflect users’ interactions with the applications.
Tags: byline, commentary, interviews, Keysight, opinion, software, Tech Focus, technology, testing
This entry was posted on Friday, September 27th, 2024 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Business IT, Keysight, Opinion, Software, Tech Focus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.