What We Do
Test and Evaluation
(T&E)
SST’s T&E process systematically examines and validates the performance, reliability, and safety of various systems, products, and technologies to ensure they meet specified requirements and perform as intended. SST has extensive T&E experience and performs a full range of T&E activities that provides expert resources and services to our customers. Our T&E experience spans virtually all areas of systems and software testing, including:
- Pre-Developmental Test
- Developmental Test
- Operational Test
- Independent Verification and Validation
- Key Site Testing
Areas of Expertise
Pre-Developmental Test
Our test engineers review and evaluate on existing system/software requirements and participate in Preliminary Design Reviews thus facilitating the removal of requirement gaps prior to development resulting in substantial development cost saving and a faster time to market/deployment. We also conduct or participate in pre-transition site inspections and develop site inspection reports which thwart installation and deployment issues that may cause delays in the eventual delivery of developed systems. Additionally, when new systems are to be integrated with or into legacy systems, we provide analysis and evaluation services that produces a set of system functional and operational changes that would be required of either system in order to produce a single cohesive system.
Developmental Test (DT)
We provide support for our customer’s DT activities and requirements for both software and hardware systems and subsystems. We conduct and participate in Test Working Groups to ensure that pertinent test issues are discussed with and resolved by the appropriate contributing contractor or vendor. We use progressive and measured approaches to address T&E standards and to verify requirements starting with basic component levels, and incrementally building and evaluating requirements for complex, integrated components, and systems during DT. Our test engineers develop and execute DT plans and procedures formulated to maximize system test coverage.
SST supports DT integration testing in laboratory environments to verify that systems are complete, and that external systems and interfaces are functioning properly. We develop test tools that emulate the projected operational conditions, and we run DT system testing using these custom-built test tools to verify the integrity of integrated software and hardware components at the system level.
Operational Test (OT)
SST performs OT support to validate that new or modified systems are operationally effective, safe, and suitable for use. We develop OT test plans, procedures, and scenarios, and conduct dry runs of OT test procedures.
We support OT pre-test briefings that include:
- Defining test objectives and success criteria, test configurations
- Identifying test personnel and assignments
- Conducting test walkthroughs
- Evaluating proposed procedural changes or planned deviations
- Identifying test limitations and the status of all known problems and anomalies
- Identifying and defining methods of data collection
Our engineers execute OT test procedures, conduct post-test reviews to review test results, and debrief testers and observers to identify any undocumented issues. We perform data analysis to determine system accuracy, completeness, and correctness. We generate OT discrepancy reports for all issues discovered during OT. We use the contents of the OT post-test reviews and test status reports to generate final test reports.
Case Study
Photometric Testing of Light Emitting Diode (LED) Approach Lighting Systems
Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V)
SST reviews and evaluates the methodologies for performing full software lifecycle development including requirements analysis and definition, specification development, design, development, implementation, testing, and maintenance. SST has significant experience performing software unit tests, software integration tests, system tests, and writing system and software documentation. SST’s IV&V activities support the discovery of discrepancies in requirements and quality of system and software products, thus facilitating the correction and development of higher-quality systems. Our engineers review source code, evaluate documentation, and analyze algorithms for accuracy, completeness, and correctness. We also perform system verification by using various testing methods, such as integration testing, to ensure that all system components interact as expected, and functional requirement testing to validate that user requirements have been satisfied. Additionally, system testing is performed on the entire software and hardware system to validate that it is functioning as per user requirements and acceptance criteria. Key Site Test
SST supports Key Site Test activities and tasks. We provide technical assistance as required to site personnel during site transition activities (e.g. communication, installation, checkout, evaluation), and conduct Key Site testing and the development and publishing of test results. Tests supported include Factory Acceptance Tests (FAT), throughput timing and stability tests, Production Acceptance Tests (PAT); Site Acceptance Tests; Site Interface Tests; System Evaluation Tests; OT; regression tests; system reliability and maintainability tests; and system shakedown tests.