CASE STUDY

Test Framework

Mirka Ltd

Test Framwork Mirka LTD

Test Framework for Mirka Ltd

Mirka Ltd is a world leader in surface finishing technology and offers a broad range ofgroundbreaking sanding solutions for the surface finishing and precision industry. The Mirka motto, ‘Dedicated to the Finish’, states the company’s high standards for all to see.The growing Mirka Power Tools department develops and manufactures advanced sanding and polishing machines, and continually focuses on innovative product and process development. Remaining in the technical forefront, and at the same time maintaining the company’s uncompromising quality requires an equally high paced development of test capabilities and coverage.

Developing test rigs from scratch for each new product, and manually controlling them would make the cost of test increase at the same pace as the increase in functionality. Such a proliferation of test rigs would also become hard to maintain and create strong dependencies on specific individuals. In discussion with Novator Solutions, implementation of a standardized test framework would address all these challenges. Basing all of Mirka’s test rigs on a common flexible architecture makes it possible to create a single learning path for new employees to acquire the knowledge needed to maintain the rigs, as well as create new ones. It would also allow for faster development of test rigs, continuous improvement of the architecture, and an ever-increasing automation grade.

Project Overview

Solution

• Flexible architecture possible to apply on different products for fast rig development
• Modular architecture allows reuse and thus continous improvements to each module
• The flexibility and modularity allows expansion an repurposing of existing rigs
•  Automation capabilities built in from the start, and continously refined, to allow higher test coverage without increasing cost
• Common architecture makes it possible to teach new employees how to support all rigs at once

Characteristics

A framework can be defined as a reusable codebase of high quality that can be scaled up or down without limiting its usability, and seamlessly extended with new functionality.

Requirements

• Following high-level requirements for the test framework were identified: It should be modular – so that individual components can be reused in different configurations
• It should be flexible – so that optimal hardware can be selected and test sequences can be created or adapted without changes to the overall architecture
• It should produce user friendly rigs, including user interfaces, data storage and stability – so that rigs created become helpful tools to product specialists that can use them effortlessly, and if needed request new features from a test system architect.
• It should be well architected according to best practices – so that new architects can be trained according to standardized learning paths, and that maintenance and development of the framework does not become dependent on specific individuals.

This singled out LabVIEW OOP as the ideal software tool because of the inherent object-oriented modularity, broad hardware integration, UI and data storage possibility, and existence of efficient classroom and online training.

It was decided that the framework should be treated as a product, not a tool. This means it will have a responsible owner, and a living backlog and bug reporting. This also makes it possible for Mirka to assign and train people for different roles in the test value chain.

Features

A test rig consists of a LabVIEW OOP class inheriting from an overarching rig class. This rig class launches and manages communication interfaces, hardware layer, I/O-channels, logging, centralized error handling and other functionality needed.

I/O and sequencing are separated in a client-server model. This allows access to the measurements from different devices, also parallel devices. There is also the choice to deploy to either Windows or real time targets. It also enables usage of either a LabVIEW-based sequence engine and data visualization user interface for development tests, or TestStand for enterprise integration for production tests.

Hardware is integrated through a hardware abstraction layer. Modular NI hardware is the de facto standard for general measurements. This allows for cost efficient way of avoiding downtime as spares can be kept that can be used on multiple systems. Specialized instrumentation can be integrated seamlessly when needed. Sensors built into the Mirka electric sanders are also integrated through the HAL and natively used as instrumentation in the framework.

• Reusing existing hardware drivers, or implementing new ones by inheriting from the HAL-class.
• Reusing or developing new test steps, including control, measurements and calculations, and adding the steps to new or existing test sequences.
• Configuring what data should be recorded and to where (report, files on server, database), no programming needed as long as report format has not changed.

In that way, Mirka leverages all work that has been on previous rigs today, and can continue to leverage todays work in the future.

Novator Solutions’ Development Process 

Novator Solutions uses the Scrum process framework for managing our development work. Scrum is a lightweight, iterative and incremental framework for managing complex work. The framework challenges assumptions of the traditional, sequential approach to product development, and enables teams to self-organize by encouraging physical co-location or close online collaboration of all team members, as well as daily face-to-face communication among all team members and disciplines involved.

Novator Solutions’ Pricing Models

Novator Solutions offers two types of pricing models for turn-key systems, Fixed Price or Time & Materials. Development is always done using the agile programming framework Scrum.

Regardless of delivery model chosen, we are always committed to the long term success of the systems we deliver. We offer service agreements to guarantee uptime and continuous upgrades, and to mitigate obsolescence of components.

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