An online decision-making support tool development for prioritising verification, validation and testing activities in sustainable product design and manufacturing

This project will develop an online interactive tool that supports manufacturers in aligning verification, validation and testing with multiple stakeholders' requirements and prioritising them to support decision-making.

Developing new sustainable technology and products needs extensive verification, validation and testing (VV&T). An effective way of analysing the requirements of different stakeholders, i.e., the customer's voice, regulations and business's voice and how these requirements must be considered in the VV&T planning, is significantly challenging, especially for new technology developers and manufacturers.

Legislation, customer needs and business affordability together should drive a company's VV&T activities. Customer-demanding tests ( also known as Voice of Customer (VOC)) are for product validation. Voice of Regulation (VOR) mainly monitors how customer requirements and environmental factors are respected during product development and manufacturing; often, these tests are required for certification. Voice of Business (VOB) monitors the optimal balance between internal and external demands as well as its contribution to the business profitability.

This project aims to develop an online interactive tool that will systematically support the analysis of critical requirements and influences on the VV&T activity for new technology development and manufacturing. The proposed tool will help manufacturers and SMEs map customer and regulatory requirements to product specifications and VVT activities. The tool will generate matrix representations that visualise the mapping between customer requirements, technical requirements, and VV&T activities. This approach will allow users to understand the connections between different stakeholders' needs and how they influence the VV&T activities. The tool will also provide rankings and scores of technical requirements and VV&T activities, allowing users to prioritise testing activities based on importance and risk. The tool will guide through a systematic process that will help manufacturers make informed decisions about testing, potentially saving time and costs in VV&T planning and decision-making.

The benefits of the tool include a better understanding of stakeholders and their choices, systematically identifying requirements related to VV&T activities, establishing a clear understanding by mapping multiple stakeholders' requirements with products' technical specifications and VV&T activities, and prioritising VV&T activities to save time and costs in testing.