Developed a software platform for cRIO-based automated high-volume end-of-line (EOL) functional testing of electromechanical devices for a tier 1 automotive supplier. The software platform is flexible enough to adapt to any of the customer’s modern production lines and products while being robust and reliable enough to meet six-sigma quality standards. The platform is now in service on 12 high-volume manufacturing lines in the U.S. and China.
The software platform is capable of simultaneous asynchronous testing and control of up to 12 units at a time and can dynamically support an arbitrary mix of product models. It supports data acquisition rates of up to 70,000 Hz on each nest and simultaneous PID control loops of up to 7,000 Hz on each nest. It communicates with Rockwell (Allen-Bradley) PLCs via Ethernet/IP and pushes test data into SQL databases.
I trained and mentored one of the customer’s internal test engineering teams in LabVIEW concurrent with developing the software platform. Established a software development process for the customer. With the new platform, software development time for new EOL testers has been reduced from typically 6 months to 4 – 6 weeks.