Flexible Automation Inc. (FAI) had built several testers for a company who supplies automotive parts to the big automobile manufactures. The customer had shipped a bad part that was marked as tested and should have been caught by the final function testers. The results file was evaluated, and it became apparent that a test step had been disabled from the sequence. The request made to FAI was to create a solution to verify critical tests have not been disabled and to verify the system hardware and software are functioning as intended.
FAI made the system require serial numbered parts be ran at configurable intervals. The system could be configured to require the running of the verification parts at shift change or when a changeover occurs or both. These parts would have a defined list of must pass and must fail codes. Once the verification process was triggered, the only way to resume production was to complete the verification process. All serial numbered parts for that product had to be ran. The results for each part had to match the expected results.
Our customer could show their customer that they had an automated system for verifying the status of the testers. One that produced log files of the results of the mandated testing. This helped to ensure that only parts tested on verified testers where shipped.
