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High Cost of Functional Test in Electronics Manufacturing

Universal Functional Test (UFT):

A cost-effective manufacturing test development software platform.


A hardware and software platform designed for straightforward and re-usable development.



High-Cost Problem


Functional test in the manufacturing process requires custom development due to the unique nature of each product. The manufacturing mindset is to minimize or eliminate custom work, as it is neither inexpensive nor easy to scale. There are three general approaches for development of manufacturing tests, each with its own pressure against reusability:


1.) In-house test engineers at the end of the New Product Introduction (NPI) cycle are often under pressure to win back delays that have accumulated all along the development process.


2.) Outside test resources are generally constrained by the project bid, which is optimized for the product in question rather than reusability.


3.) Quick-deploy off-the-shelf functional test solutions generally lack key features which much be added later by returning to approach 1 or 2.


Solution: Reusable Test Technologies


UFT is designed from the ground up to automate the functional test processes to the greatest reasonable extent in order to:


1.) Optimize test developer and operator’s time, increasing productivity and decreasing cost.

2.) Reduce operator error, increasing productivity and avoiding false-passes, which can result in Out-Of-Box Failure or OOBF.


J-Testr takes a similar software approach but leverages its own hardware platform.


1.) Supports both open-frame or clamshell “pogo-pin” fixture approaches.

What about clamshell fixtures?


While it is possible through complicated fixturing to “fully” automate a test process, many automated steps diverge into corner-cases which become increasingly expensive to automate for decreasing benefit. While clamshell fixtures necessitate full automation due to their restriction of technician access, open-frame fixtures allow access to the product. This fixture design approach opens up choices for cost cutting that are supported by both UFT and J-Testr. The goal when developing an open-frame test is to pick all the low-hanging fruit and cover critical features, allowing the operator to make some judgment calls at higher levels of complexity to save time and money. These platforms achieve this by providing easily reconfigurable dialogs for interacting with the operator.


What about intricate functions?


Any step deemed too expensive to automate is offloaded to the operator with simple, well-written instructions and/or pictures. These value decisions occur at various points in the development process against a test plan and can be handled with a minimal amount of interaction between the test engineer and the product team. Since the manual steps are easy to set up, there is little effort wasted if the decision to automate comes later on in the product’s lifecycle.


What sets these solutions apart from others in the industry?


Built for scalability and reusability, both UFT’s and J-Testr’s libraries of test routines have been growing for well over a decade. While they already include subroutines to perform many tests needed, each overall test plan is customized and the library expanded to ensure a given product meets its specifications. When a product fails a test, the operator is presented with details from the test and optional diagnostics relating to specific components.


These test solutions ensure each manufactured product is correctly…


  • Moving itself

  • Measuring

  • Analyzing data

  • Doing whatever the product does

  • … and is ready to be included into the next assembly or shipped to a customer.


If you have any questions please send us an email or talk directly by scheduling a Calendly meeting. Click below.



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