Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems support vital functions throughout successful high-tech manufacturing, software, and electronics companies. Initially beneficial for engineering teams, PLM now benefits every department involved in a product’s lifecycle by providing the right information in a timely fashion and assisting in production, planning, control, and revenue strategies.
Just as the ripple effect of PLM’s benefits can be felt throughout an organization, any deployment errors can have a widespread negative impact on business operations. So it’s vital that PLM software is installed, configured, and integrated correctly.
This means that software testing is key when it comes to deploying and managing any PLM system, with three important aspects to consider:
1. Establishing accuracy throughout the PLM landscape
To ensure that the PLM system configurations and custom business logic work as expected, accurate execution is essential. This isn’t only about configuration and testing of the core PLM system. The PLM system’s behavior, logic and data will be integrated into other parts of the ecosystem, so ensuring these integrations are consistent and that the values and triggered logic inside these third-party systems behave correctly is critical.
Deploying a PLM system should ensure consistency, with a data point only being entered once and then referenced across every system.
2. Ensuring consistency during changes, updates and upgrades
Changes to PLM logic or supporting systems have the potential to introduce data errors, which can rapidly cause supply chain and compliance problems.
System updates, new features and security patches mean newer versions of the PLM system and third-party systems must be installed, with the impact not always clear. Hence the need for confirmation and validation, usually via regression testing, before changes can go into production.
3. Maintaining performance and availability to optimize usability
Often a large number of users depend on PLM system capabilities, so it’s vital to know that a deployed system will support the load and needs for the expected volume of users. Lack of availability or slow response times can reduce productivity and become frustrating for users.
Once a system is seen to be capable of supporting the load and needs of users, proactive monitoring is needed to detect performance regressions and availability dropouts, and ensure continued functionality and user satisfaction.
Solving the challenges of PLM testing
With PLM systems made up of such an intricate mix of applications in diverse environments, rigorous testing is needed to ensure software quality. But this is time consuming, and it can feel less important compared with testing customer-facing software.
So how can the vital but often frustrating amount of time spent on PLM testing and validation be cut down? Right now, tests that cover both initial deployment and ongoing regression scenarios are generally carried out manually. Even automated regression testing relies on manual processes.
With the significant costs and delays involved in manual testing, not to mention the more limited test coverage, there’s no denying it makes sense to move from a manual testing strategy to an automated one.
Automating the entire PLM testing process
Embracing test automation for PLM software increases testing efficiency and frees teams up to focus on other important work, hitting release dates earlier and enhancing agility.
But before introducing a PLM software testing tool, an organization needs to be sure the tool hits several key requirements:
- Comprehensive, end-to-end coverage, including functional testing of the core code and any customisations, to provide complete confidence in testing quality,
- Testing has to happen quickly enough for tests to be completed within the sprint timescale, so teams can stay on track with their release schedules,
- The platform must be easy and intuitive to use, with testers able to script and automate manual scripts without any issues,
- DevOps capabilities are needed for a simplified and streamlined process.
- Fast and comprehensive testing with Keysight’s Eggplant Test
Testing PLM processes in design and manufacturing industries is especially challenging thanks to the graphical nature of design applications, along with the complex and wide-ranging additional systems involved.
Eggplant Test enables end-to-end testing in all of these systems to replicate the perspective of a real user. Automation and visual verification can be undertaken no matter how much visual complexity is involved, from interacting with sliders and pop-ups to counting holes on a bracket. Test any platform or technology, including web, mobile, native apps, custom apps, PDF documents, IIoT and ARKit.
No connection to the object (or API) layer is needed, so studying the app’s code structure isn’t required. Tests are designed to reflect users’ interactions with the applications.
Eggplant Test ensures accuracy across the PLM landscape
Computer-aided design (CAD) software creates a “digital twin” of a physical product, so designers can create and modify designs digitally. Eggplant Test enables automated testing of this design manipulation with intuitive commands that mimic user interactions.
With a low-code, natural language-like interface, software testing can be carried out by users who don’t have programming skills. And when design changes happen, Eggplant Test verifies them without manual intervention.
Beyond CAD systems, Eggplant Test can validate ancillary elements to PLM ecosystems including PDFs, spreadsheets and database entries, enhancing data consistency, reliability and accuracy.
Guaranteeing consistency during changes, updates and upgrades with Eggplant Test
The only constant is change, especially with reliance on cloud/SaaS systems. Add in operating system updates, security patches and upgrades, and we know that the environment will change. The solution is to define a core set of tests, supplemented by regression packs.
Eggplant Test can cover many systems in one test case, so there’s no need for manual testing of any one system, or for manual testing to cover the gap or interaction between systems.
Eggplant Test maintains performance and availability for optimal usability
Basic monitoring can check system responsiveness, but this doesn’t address the needs of the user in the way that Eggplant Test does. Users need non-functional elements such as model loading times and data transfer efficiency to be optimized.
Accurate data is provided via Eggplant Test by understanding the visual status of the screens. Eggplant Test provides the ability to:
- Define the expected user outcome, such as full model visibility,
- Record accurate and detailed timing data,
- Compare performance against baselines or thresholds, with options for alerts.
- Future-proof PLM test automation while increasing operational efficiency
As teams are under even more pressure, and systems under test are continuously evolving, Eggplant Test has the potential to increase testing coverage and speed up testing, freeing teams up to be deployed in other areas.
In embracing the full power of Eggplant Test, customers have seen outcomes including turning 15 days of manual testing into an overnight test, moving from completing a 10-hour test event every three days to running a 24-hour test every day, and experienced testers with little automation experience embracing the solution and sharing their appreciation at how it improves the way they work.
Automated PLM testing isn’t a “nice to have” anymore. Eggplant Test is the sensible solution for improving test quality, reducing risk, and increasing testing efficiency.
Read more about how Eggplant can solve your PLM testing challenges here.