Success (?) at Last

It was a mad dash and a scramble, but we finally finished the effort to get the ATP software done.

There always seem to be last-minute concerns in a process like this, especially when it's all taking place on a Friday afternoon, and it only exacerbates the situation when half the team is in one building and the rest are in another. In our case, Engineering is over 'here', and Manufacturing is over 'there'. So after we declare our software good, they pack up all our hardware (and software) and truck it over to the other building, and run a bunch of tests in their Manufacturing Labs, and we talk on the phone for hours and hours, debating every little thing that comes up.

We had several hardware 'anomalies' which required explanation, but nothing that could be traced to the software. In some cases, we have to assume that the hardware tests have actually revealed hardware failures (the software can only be blamed for so much), and then the hardware engineers have to put their collective heads together and figure out if something is really wrong. But so far as we software weenies are concerned, we're done.

For now.

This whole push was simply to get the software in a state to support the ATP process, to allow Manufacturing to test the boards which are going out to the Customer's Training Lab, yet we know even now that there is still much that has not been tested. We are awaiting investigation of some areas which we simply could not complete due to bizarre, inexplicable integration failures. Once those problems are understood, we will have to revise our software again.

Well, someone will, anyway. I'm moving on to another assignment, another fire to put out. Our Certification activities are due for completion by next February, so for the next few months, that'll be my main focus. I'm passing this task off to another young engineer (who, incidentally, is just starting work on his Dissertation) and letting him have all the coding/testing fun, while it'll be documentation and planning processes and spreadsheets and budgetary concerns for me.

Oh, joy.

Meanwhile, this weekend looks like a good opportunity to put the lawn sprinkler system back together. The grass is looking a might poorly.