Enabling rapid product development through improved verification and validation processes

Fierce competition in consumer electronics market has raised a lot of challenges for product development. Products now must enter to the market as fast as possible. The verification and validation (V&V) process is normally the most resource-demanding activity in product development (PD), and thus also has huge potential for improvement. The V&V process is traditionally executed near the end of the development process, and is one of the most critical activities because it identifies design errors. Error correction for a nearly complete product is often difficult and therefore can cause unexpected delays in product delivery. Performing V&V activities in early phases of the PD process and utilising V&V methods other than testing has proven to be a good approach to reduce risks associated with taking a long time to reach the market. However, V&V can only be carried out when verifiable requirements exist. This paper focuses on the importance of moving V&V activities to each phase of PD by defining the requirements for components and modules. In addition, we explore how some of product-level requirements can be verified before a product has been integrated, and explain the difference between definitions of verification and validation requirements. Finally, we present the idea of changing the focus of verification activities from being set-based in the early phase of development, to being point-based when the product is close to completion.