Most of us do some form of testing or other validation of our designs and production systems before we initiate production of our products. For some of us, especially those who produce products related to safety, we must prove to a regulatory agency that our products are safe and meet regulations.

I’ve yet to witness an environment where product testing is not a delicate balance. Even in high-volume production environments that produce low-cost products, a 5-percent error in defect rates or the time delay in production due to testing can be very expensive. Similarly, testing a helicopter isn’t cheap or easy.

Testing becomes a gamble for almost all of us. When your business takes that gamble, does it also plan contingencies or insurance in the event that the gamble doesn’t prove out? Let me give some examples of what I mean.

Looking at the transportation industry for one of my favorite conundrums for discussion, it can be very expensive to test a fully functional automobile. It is vastly more expensive and difficult to test a passenger aircraft or a train. So, how do we prove or otherwise validate that a design is good, and how do we prove that it is safe? We test it, of course.

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