Introduction
This week’s spotlight focuses on explaining how we know this will work behind the scenes. What does tested mean? Does the app function properly? Is the system stable? Could we take an RFID tag and do “x” with it?
These questions and many more truly begin to determine the difference between theory and standard process. What separates theory and standard process is determined by the black and white results of an expected test.
The Challenge
What does the environment look like year-round? How is this process normally carried out? What doesn’t normally happen that could and needs to be accounted for?
Testing is defined as the process of taking measures to check the quality, performance, or reliability of an expected result. Conceptually testing makes perfect sense and theoretically can be directly applied assuming you have accounted for all variables. Here at Arbre, we work with many different customers opening up the doors for multiple scenarios. Our current test station focuses on verifying the functionality of our automated checkpoints.
Implementation, Support & Service
With our latest development, ArbreScan, our efforts were focused on creating a stand-alone application that would move inventory without interaction of an operator. In an effort to best simulate the “real-world experience” the following parameters were identified for test setup:
- Setup within a metal building
- 300 feet of ethernet cable
- Wireless Repeating connects
- Point-to-Point Internet connection
Our automated 24/7 test station utilizes metal containers to block the RFID signal from being received. These metal containers are programmed on a timer to open every 9 minutes 45 seconds for 15 seconds thus producing 6 moves per hour around the clock. The metal containers have the same unique ID tags, therefore when the containers are open independently, back and forth from 2A to 2B we begin to simulate automatic move operations. The complete operation is verified through our Arbre BI tool showing a log of all the move operations for station 2 in this case.
The last step in our test processing, verify we are seeing automated moves as a given product moves from one area to the next. Here is an example of our QA Audit Logs.
