The Software Factory -Test, Test and Test Again
The mission of our Software Factory, the heart of Brüel & Kjær software development, is to make the very complex software development process as secure, easy and efficient as possible.
EfficiencyLet’s take PULSE™, our data acquisition and analysis system, as an example. Its development cycle is based on daily builds and nightly tests. Developers work on new features and bug fixes during the day. Following this, the daily build starts and the product is built from scratch. When the build is complete, the nightly test starts. And when that test is complete, the Quality Assurer responsible sifts carefully through the results, and hands out the bug reports to the developers. In this way, bugs are fixed in a heartbeat, maintaining a high level of product quality during the life cycle of the product. During the nightly test we run around 1000 test cases on 40 systems in parallel daily, which is equivalent to around 2000 hours of manual testing.
Easy-to-useBecause we work globally, it is important that our tools and processes are easy to use. We deal with development teams around the world – from Japan to India to USA. By using the latest technologies to web-enable our test environment, we can provide our engineers worldwide with access to the bug reporting and test system in the Software Factory. So if a bug is found in software, the responsible team, wherever they might be in the world, can access the system where the problem can be reproduced for debugging purposes. In their daily work the test engineers need easy access to the different parts of the test system in order to maintain and develop the test cases. In the Software Factory up to four test engineers can work in parallel on any part of the test system, either locally from the test seats, or remotely over the Internet.
PULSE Development
Developers work on new features and bug fixes during the day
PULSE Daily Build
The daily build when the product is built from scratch
PULSE Nightly Test
The nightly test exposes and locates bugs
PULSE Feedback
The Quality Assurer hands out the bug reports to the developer
Quick Facts
- 70% coverage of core functionality is tested in the Regression Test
- 1000 different test scenarios equivalent to at least 2000 hours of manual testing
- Daily feedback to developers
- Helps Application Specialists focus on new features/creative work
How do we Ensure High Software Quality Now and in the Future?
Software quality is extremely important to us. To ensure that software development is in line with the challenges our customers encounter daily, we arrange different activities to help us understand their needs and requirements. We believe that close communication with our customers is the best way to help us to constantly deliver software of superior quality. We do this by holding customer clinics and surveys. By participating in customer clinics our customers get a chance to get close to our staff members, and we get insight into their work processes. Customer clinics are often whole day events consisting of different activities. By getting to know the customer and combining that with our expertise and knowledge we can develop software in step with our customers’ daily challenges. Customer surveys are another way of starting a dialogue with customers. By asking for feedback we can ensure that our customers’ needs are used as input for software development and so improve software quality.
