RISK MANAGEMENT
200
electrically
propelled aircraft in
development around
the world 6
“Test should be treated as a
critical business function that
adds value to your organization”
place, I can take a back seat,” says Harper.
“The test is done in accordance with all
the processes and the plan.”
PROJECT RISKS
Although safety management is always
paramount, risks related to costs and time
also matter to a test program. Nick Butler
is global market leader for aerospace and
defense for National Instruments and
works with large established aerospace
companies and start-ups. The company
supplies equipment and instrumentation
for systems testing, embedded software
testing, communications and navigation
systems testing, electromechanical testing
as well as radar, electronic warfare and
signals testing.
Butler sees his clients in the aerospace
sector manage project risks regularly. He
says, “It is part of the project manager’s
role to meet schedules and deal with
budgets. Sometimes there is a trade-off
that can be made with quality and
reliability to achieve targets and they may
have to decide – are they going to do
more testing on an asset to ensure it is
mission-ready, or are they going to cut
those tests to stay on budget and on time?
“Our aim is to help project managers
and test engineers so they don’t have to
make that type of compromise – so they
can achieve the utmost quality and
reliability standards while meeting
budgets and schedules.”
Butler believes to avoid such
compromises, aerospace companies must
take a strategic approach to testing that
integrates it with design, development
and production cycles more closely.
Ideally the test plan and the product is developed
concurrently. This means rethinking the traditional
approach, where engineers conduct validation, functional
and production testing after design and development.
“We are trying to evolve the approach to product
development so that you design then validate, then you
iterate the design and validate again. The use of digital
prototyping and model-based engineering allows you to
minimize the amount of physical prototyping and testing
in this process,” says Butler.
DEALING WITH COMPLEXITY
Testing in the virtual world offers a way of dealing with
increasingly complicated aircraft systems. As shown by
Boeing’s recent challenges with the 737 Max, systems
testing is arguably the most important part of aircraft
certification. Similar to model-based engineering and
virtual prototyping, hardware in the loop (HIL) testing is
a tool that enables engineers to manage risks better.
HIL testing involves laying out an aircraft’s systems,
such as an iron bird or flat-sat and inputting and
outputting signals into the systems to represent different
real-world scenarios. “Simulating in this way enables
68 DECEMBER 2019 \\ AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COM
7
5 // The Seraph prototype eVTOL takes
design cues from multi-rotor drones
and like many can be described as an
enlarged drone
6, 7 // The open rotors of the Seraph
were identified as a potential area for
failure and the risks were mitigated
accordingly in the test plan
8// Complex test programs for
aero engines use tools such as
simulation and digital twins to reduce
cost and risk in the test program
5
8
engineers to get a better handle on budgeting and
scheduling,” says Butler. “Risk will always increase as
complexity increases but we have the tools and approach
to mitigate risk and keep it below a threshold.”
Testing can often be seen as a necessary evil during
development, but Butler passionately believes that with
proper risk management, modern test systems and
approaches it can be a positive for an aerospace company.
“Test data is an untapped resource,” he says, “It’s a gold
mine of information that can really help customers
innovate faster.
“You learn about your product by testing it, so the
earlier you can test, the faster you can innovate and beat
your competition to deliver a reliable high quality
product on time and on budget.”
Aerospace companies are developing aircraft that are
simultaneously more innovative than anything the sector
has seen for decades and safe and reliable enough for
commercial operations. Meeting this challenge
successfully requires engineers to use the latest tools and
approaches to project management, while remaining
within the rules as established by more than a century of
aviation development to mitigate risks. \\
/AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COM