5. Software Perspective: The Test Facility

Globalization has continued steadily over recent years, intensifying the competition among automakers even further. This has had a direct impact on the test facilities, which, likewise, have to be prepared to respond to the changing framework conditions with great speed and efficiency. As a result of this trend, test facilities today are increasingly being used globally, requiring the necessary support through suitable solutions. Sophisticated software solutions have also led to a steady increase in the degree of automation in testing operation. Many managers see the vision of fully automated test facilities with maximum utilization—also on a global scale—as a matter of the (near) future. The ability to handle the growing test complexity, combined with maximally utilized test beds, is a key factor of success for future test facilities. Therefore this chapter deals with the architectural layer of test facility-wide data processing. Accordingly, the goal in this layer is to analyze and optimize not only logistics processes, such as regular quality assurance management for measuring equipment, but also matters pertaining to test facility capacity management. The layer additionally provides support to development teams all over the world by standardizing the ways they access data (measuring results or control unit parameters).