A real Industrial process starts with a good test machine

The production flow of a complex product like a Single Board Computer could be a mess if not correctly managed.

We all know, there are lots of ERPs out there to help us with management of bills of materials, stock, process flow, order tracking and so on.

They are mostly all very good and well done, but nobody talks about the importance of a good, well done, reliable, in-depth testing, covering every failure mode one can think of and as automated as possible, test machine. A real industrial process requires one that embeds into our production flow an impassable filter that assures us and more importantly, our customers, that not one of our products will arrive to our customer without undergoing a complete in-depth check and a “written” assurance that all works fine.

This is the final target of good test equipment installed at the end of the line: the production unit that should be shipped to the final customer is only the one that works fine from the customer’s point of view, and this simple target is sometimes forgotten by engineers.

The production process has its own test points, system and machines, starting from an AOI to a nail bed, so if all of this is well done & maintained (things not easy but feasible from professional manufacturers).
So after this well done engineering process and validation (to exclude project design defect), we can trust that the board works.

From the customer point of view?

No, from the boards point of view. From the customer’s point of view things could be quite different. So the test equipment needs to be done sequentially.

Customers expect to find their own defined software preloaded, nothing else, and expect that all the peripherals they connect with work properly at the first trial.
This is exactly what we need to do; a piece or series of pieces of test equipment that replicates the specific customer’s experience, positioned after the production line and its self-test, able to record every step, create a complete report and label in an appropriate manner, only the fully working boards... From the customer’s point of view.