Averna Uses NI LabVIEW and FieldPoint to Automate Software for Design Validation Library

Author(s):
Shahzad Sarwar - Averna Technologies, Inc.
Daniel Cox - Averna Technologies, Inc.

Industry:
Research, Industrial Controls/ Devices/ Systems

Products:
Compact FieldPoint, FieldPoint, LabVIEW

The Challenge:
Integrating the design validation laboratory of an automotive lamp manufacturing facility while managing several test devices, including environment chambers, power supplies, and special-purpose current switches, and creating an automated test environment

The Solution:
Using the Averna Technologies Proligent test automation tool to create and maintain test plans associated with design validation and using National Instruments LabVIEW and NI FieldPoint to execute a highly flexible and parallel testing system.

Implementing Design Validation System
Decoma International Inc., a client of Averna Technologies, needed to implement design validation testing for their automotive lamp manufacturing facility. In this facility, Decoma manufactures a large variety of products and customers dictate a proliferate number of design validation plans. Therefore, Decoma needed a highly dynamic, rigorously traceable test execution and quality control system. Typically, the validation testing required power cycling the individual bulbs in an automotive lamp assembly with environmental conditions generated and controlled by dedicated chambers. Salient requirements of a design validation system included:

• Producing and maintaining temperature, humidity, vibration, rain, and solar loads for durations that may extend up to weeks
• Performing validation testing for product where lamp assembly undergoes on/off cycling to a number that can reach hundreds of thousands of cycles
• Synchronizing customer-specific environment chamber profiles and bulb cycling details
• Validating the design to determine if the lamp was still functional and passed the photometric measurements after running the power cycling

The application presented several implementation challenges including:

• Process Mapping: A corporate-wide team was involved in design validation efforts. Design engineers, quality control personnel, test resources, and photometric technicians all contributed in product validation phases. These resources defined the batch and test plans, executed testing, and approved product performance through distributed work locations. The application was required to give access and integrate the work of all these resources while providing a complete process mapping in software.

• Integration Flexibility: Validation testing required controlling environment chambers, power supplies, and high-current switches from different vendors. We needed various interface standards (RS232, 4-20mA, digital I/O) to use hardware resources in numerous patterns with flexibility and in a customer-specified fashion.

• Reliability: Test durations extended over weeks, so we needed a stable, reliable, and unattended test system.

• Central Information Repository: We needed to store test plans, execution run-time information, and results in a central database with multiple access windows and views required by different users to specify test steps and use the test results in report generation.

System Design and Software Implementation
We used Proligent to manage the process mapping and test plan creation. With Proligent, users can create a test plan and associate it with a product model and a batch of serial numbers. The test plan creation involved specifying test steps and unit routing along with chamber profiles and power cycling information. We stored the test plan information electronically in a SQL database and disk resident batch files.

During validation testing, an NI LabVIEW desktop application processed the batch execution information. As a product serial number was scanned at a test station, the system retrieved its test plan and past history from the database. The operator then could select the hardware resources and configure the system for the next test step.

Once the test began, we used NI FieldPoint and NI ENET modules to control the hardware. We used serial communication through remote ENET modules to program and monitor environment chamber profiles. When we reached the desired chamber conditions, we used FieldPoint 4-20 mA output to set the voltage on high-current power supplies. Finally, we used FieldPoint digital output channels to multiplex the voltage to different lamp bulbs and periodically power cycle the lamp.

We used the VI template technique to provide class definitions for the chamber profile manager, power supply, power switches, and other hardware elements, which helped us implement a very powerful and flexible parallel testing system. The software ran under Windows on a desktop, with the database backend built with license-free MSDE technology. SQL-stored procedures and the NI LabVIEW Enterprise Connectivity Toolkit provided full access for data storage and retrieval from database tables.

The system provides real-time indications on test activity to the operator. While storing all execution information to the database, the application auto terminates the test as its target duration is reached.

Once photometric measurements and other acceptance results for a tested lamp become available, we use Proligent to enter them into the database. The system provides complete test process integration and makes all the execution and result data available for post-test comments, statistical process control, and report generation.


LabVIEW Saves Resources and Provides Test Data
Using NI hardware and software deployed on desktops, we successfully integrated a design validation laboratory that required challenging instrumentation control and process management needs. The networked and distributed application supported by a database back tier provided a deep and realistic process mapping and enterprise-wide integration of resources working on product testing. We streamlined the tedious process of maintaining a high-mix test environment and enforcement of quality standards with a highly flexible, reliable control and monitoring application.

The extensive and powerful application and user-interface development capabilities of LabVIEW, along with tight hardware-software integration, remarkably facilitated the implementation of this end-to-end solution. The effort resulted in cost savings as compared to other alternatives, and it provided a return on investment of less than a year to our customer. The validation system is providing test data that previously was buried in paper logbooks. We can now fully exploit this valuable test data to provide process feedback through statistical process control and automatic report-generation possibilities of LabVIEW toolkits.

For more information, contact:
Shahzad Sarwar
Director of Industrial and Real-Time Solutions
Averna Technologies, Inc.
275 Slater Street, Suite 900
Ottawa ON K1P 5H9
Tel:(613) 230-0283
Fax:(613) 236-3754
E-Mail: shahzad.sarwar@averna.com

Author Information:
For more information on this Case Study, contact:
Daniel Cox
Averna Technologies, Inc.
87 Prince - Suite#140
Montreal H3C 2M7
CA
Tel: (514) 842-7577
Fax: (514) 842-7573
info@averna.com

Browse All Case Studies »