- Roles and Objectives of Test Engineering
Some electronic product or PCBA assembly factories may have test engineering function as a department level organization or absorbed in other departments such as Engineering, Manufacturing, Manufacturing Engineering or Quality etc. That more or less depends on the size of the factory, the complexity of the products and the division of labour in the management team.
The major roles of TE are usually:
Lead the formulation of test plan required to assure the functional quality of the products produced by the company. On top of following the functional specification of the product from Design Department or customers, TE should also use their expertise to judge the adequacy of the test items and make suggestion as appropriate.
Provide and maintain testing hardware and software and participate in the training and certification of test operators to cope with the production plan.
There may be some ancillary roles such as providing technical support or even supervising directly the analysis and repair of functional defectives found during various stages of manufacturing or even including products returned from customers/end users.
Fulfillment of the roles designated to TE have to meet the production plan in cost effective manner and help the company to reduce the risk associated with the functional quality of the products and to meet customers’ expectations such as test data retention and traceability.