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Computer integrated testing
book reviews ning, C A D - C A M and manufacturing. 'The strategic approach to product design (SAPD)' by Whitney et al. is a philosophical discussion on integrated product and process design (specifically assembly processers). Steps of SAPD are described, including technical, economic and educational aspects, and two illustrative examples are given. As a whole, the book can be
viewed as an Americal milestone towards CIM-CIE. The book has an excellent presentation, the papers are well written and are easy to read. The topics discussed may interest R&D workers from both university and industry engaged in CIM.
LUCAS PUN University of Bordeaux, France
Parameter design for Taguchi A Primer on the Taguchi Method by Ranjit Roy. Published by Van Nostrand Rheinhold, USA. 1990. 247pp. £28 This book is intended for engineers and managers who wish to gain an insight into the experimental design philosophy of Genichi Taguchi. Those who have been following the developments in the Total Quality Management scene will have noticed frequent mention of the Taguchi Method, and may well be looking for an understandable presentation of what is involved. Without a background in statistics, the standard texts will be found to be fairly impenetrable. This volume concentrates on the area of parameter design, and contains sufficient information to permit application to the more straightforward quality problems. The ideas of a factorial analysis are introduced very early and referred to as the conventional approach. Conventional designers, however, would probably not recognize the use of orthogonal arrays as the way they normally proceed. A treatment of the loss function, perhaps surprisingly, appears in the next chapter (supplemented later in Chapter 7) rather than introduced as the primary concept to get across. The description of consumer/supplier/tolerance criteria is
246
rather cursory, perhaps forgivable since the main thrust is in the parameter design area. The momentum of the presentation builds up in Chapter 5 with a necessarily lengthy discussion on the merits of orthogonal arrays in extracting valuable information from limited numbers of experiments. ANOVA charts are introduced at this stage, leaving a more detailed treatment until later; readers will need to be patient, since there are a number of concepts which a glossed over. The author makes much use of an example of producing a cake to maximize its customer appeal. Although this illustrates the principle, confectioners might well be offended by the implication that they measure flour in 'scoops' and butter in 'sticks'.
The reader may even gain the impression that precision measurement in the design of experiments is unimportant and a loose, inaccurate definition of quality will suffice. Nevertheless, the properties of orthogonal arrays and interactions between variables is very well presented. Although there are 50 pages devoted to the analysis of variance, some of the procedures are not sufficiently explained unless the reader has some prior knowledge. For example, the author regards 'degrees of freedom' as difficult to define. The few words which follow will not make matters sufficiently clear to gain an understanding of Chapter 6, although the necessary processing steps are reasonably clear. The section on 'brainstorming' is not what many would recognize as such an activity. The highly structured approach seems more appropriate to a formal 'quality improvement team'. The final chapter contains a number of useful case studies all drawn from the automobile design activity. The book is a very useful addition to texts in this area. It does not pretend to tell the whole story, but is recommended as a primer, as the title suggests.
C BUTLER Brunel University, UK
Good CIT introduction Computer Integrated Testing by Allen Buckroyd (editor). Published by BSP Professional Books, UK, 1990. 394pp. This book is concerned with the use of computers for testing electronic systems. It contains 14 chapters split into four parts: Introduction to CIT; Computer Aided Design; Case Studies; and Miscellany of
Extras. The book is an excellent introduction to the whole ara of computer aided testing in the manufacturing industry, and is recommended reading to any engineer or technician who is unfamiliar with the subject. Very much aimed at industrialists, this is not an academic textbook; in fact, my one criticism is that it has very little technical depth, and often leads the
Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Systems
book reviews reader rather frustrated in wanting to know more about the theory of the subject. In fairness to the editor, he does state in the preface that it is aimed at senior engineering staff who need to get involved with CIT. Any book that is written by a number of authors will suffer due to varying writing styles and an overlap of areas. I felt that one or two of the chapters could have been omitted as they had very little to say that was not said quite adequately in other parts of the book. Anyone connected with the electronic industry will realize that more and more complexity is being buried inside an integrated circuit chip, and this book gives due coverage to this area and the associated testing problems. It was also good to see a chapter devoted to Design for Testability as
Vol 5 No 3 August 1992
this is very often a neglected area by designers; although this chapter was more of a check list of areas to consider rather than how to design for testability, but it was clearly written from a manufacturing engineer's viewpoint who writes test procedures and programs for systems already designed. There were a number of areas on the subject that could have been covered in more depth. There is very little on the area of economics of testing, how much it costs at each stage to test, and at what level testing should be done from a quantity/quality point of view. Many of today's products contain microprocessors that are capable of providing built in test and monitoring facilities. There was no coverage at all of this area; there was good coverage of built-in self-test (BIST), but purely at the hardware
level aimed at automatic test equipment. The author is employed by Marconi Communication Systems, and so there was a heavy emphasis on Marconi test equipment with only brief mention of other systems. This was a bit of a shame, especially as other companies are far bigger in the field. One area that only had brief mention was the DIY test set up as promoted by HewlettPackard, where standard test equipment with a built in communications interface (GPIB) are linked to a controlling computer. On the whole, this is a well written book and a good introduction to the subject for anyone involved in the electronics manufacturing industry.
CHRIS HUDSON Brunel University, UK
247
viewed as an Americal milestone towards CIM-CIE. The book has an excellent presentation, the papers are well written and are easy to read. The topics discussed may interest R&D workers from both university and industry engaged in CIM.
LUCAS PUN University of Bordeaux, France
Parameter design for Taguchi A Primer on the Taguchi Method by Ranjit Roy. Published by Van Nostrand Rheinhold, USA. 1990. 247pp. £28 This book is intended for engineers and managers who wish to gain an insight into the experimental design philosophy of Genichi Taguchi. Those who have been following the developments in the Total Quality Management scene will have noticed frequent mention of the Taguchi Method, and may well be looking for an understandable presentation of what is involved. Without a background in statistics, the standard texts will be found to be fairly impenetrable. This volume concentrates on the area of parameter design, and contains sufficient information to permit application to the more straightforward quality problems. The ideas of a factorial analysis are introduced very early and referred to as the conventional approach. Conventional designers, however, would probably not recognize the use of orthogonal arrays as the way they normally proceed. A treatment of the loss function, perhaps surprisingly, appears in the next chapter (supplemented later in Chapter 7) rather than introduced as the primary concept to get across. The description of consumer/supplier/tolerance criteria is
246
rather cursory, perhaps forgivable since the main thrust is in the parameter design area. The momentum of the presentation builds up in Chapter 5 with a necessarily lengthy discussion on the merits of orthogonal arrays in extracting valuable information from limited numbers of experiments. ANOVA charts are introduced at this stage, leaving a more detailed treatment until later; readers will need to be patient, since there are a number of concepts which a glossed over. The author makes much use of an example of producing a cake to maximize its customer appeal. Although this illustrates the principle, confectioners might well be offended by the implication that they measure flour in 'scoops' and butter in 'sticks'.
The reader may even gain the impression that precision measurement in the design of experiments is unimportant and a loose, inaccurate definition of quality will suffice. Nevertheless, the properties of orthogonal arrays and interactions between variables is very well presented. Although there are 50 pages devoted to the analysis of variance, some of the procedures are not sufficiently explained unless the reader has some prior knowledge. For example, the author regards 'degrees of freedom' as difficult to define. The few words which follow will not make matters sufficiently clear to gain an understanding of Chapter 6, although the necessary processing steps are reasonably clear. The section on 'brainstorming' is not what many would recognize as such an activity. The highly structured approach seems more appropriate to a formal 'quality improvement team'. The final chapter contains a number of useful case studies all drawn from the automobile design activity. The book is a very useful addition to texts in this area. It does not pretend to tell the whole story, but is recommended as a primer, as the title suggests.
C BUTLER Brunel University, UK
Good CIT introduction Computer Integrated Testing by Allen Buckroyd (editor). Published by BSP Professional Books, UK, 1990. 394pp. This book is concerned with the use of computers for testing electronic systems. It contains 14 chapters split into four parts: Introduction to CIT; Computer Aided Design; Case Studies; and Miscellany of
Extras. The book is an excellent introduction to the whole ara of computer aided testing in the manufacturing industry, and is recommended reading to any engineer or technician who is unfamiliar with the subject. Very much aimed at industrialists, this is not an academic textbook; in fact, my one criticism is that it has very little technical depth, and often leads the
Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Systems
book reviews reader rather frustrated in wanting to know more about the theory of the subject. In fairness to the editor, he does state in the preface that it is aimed at senior engineering staff who need to get involved with CIT. Any book that is written by a number of authors will suffer due to varying writing styles and an overlap of areas. I felt that one or two of the chapters could have been omitted as they had very little to say that was not said quite adequately in other parts of the book. Anyone connected with the electronic industry will realize that more and more complexity is being buried inside an integrated circuit chip, and this book gives due coverage to this area and the associated testing problems. It was also good to see a chapter devoted to Design for Testability as
Vol 5 No 3 August 1992
this is very often a neglected area by designers; although this chapter was more of a check list of areas to consider rather than how to design for testability, but it was clearly written from a manufacturing engineer's viewpoint who writes test procedures and programs for systems already designed. There were a number of areas on the subject that could have been covered in more depth. There is very little on the area of economics of testing, how much it costs at each stage to test, and at what level testing should be done from a quantity/quality point of view. Many of today's products contain microprocessors that are capable of providing built in test and monitoring facilities. There was no coverage at all of this area; there was good coverage of built-in self-test (BIST), but purely at the hardware
level aimed at automatic test equipment. The author is employed by Marconi Communication Systems, and so there was a heavy emphasis on Marconi test equipment with only brief mention of other systems. This was a bit of a shame, especially as other companies are far bigger in the field. One area that only had brief mention was the DIY test set up as promoted by HewlettPackard, where standard test equipment with a built in communications interface (GPIB) are linked to a controlling computer. On the whole, this is a well written book and a good introduction to the subject for anyone involved in the electronics manufacturing industry.
CHRIS HUDSON Brunel University, UK
247