A verification and validation planning method to address change propagation effects in engineering design and manufacturing

Abstract

In-production changes must be validated prior to implementation requiring robust planning. A seven-step verification, validation, and testing method is used to identify assembly variants that should be included in testing. The method is applied to a change request causing propagation effects from variants in an automotive manufacturer. In evaluations of the method, engineers used the method successfully to identify variant propagation pathways, reducing the time and cost requirements that typically result from engineering changes. Based on the feedback from this evaluation of the verification, validation, and testing method regarding intensive laborious documentation, a semi-automated support tool is developed in Excel and presented in this research article.