Software Quality differences from Manufacturing Quality (Throwback)

1. Software quality is very different to manufacturing quality and has more nuances because of the customisation around it.

2. Manufacturing focuses on real quality that you can hold and is tangible. In software we are more focused on perceived quality.

Quote — Sufyan Farooqi

My first job came from a manufacturing plant. I personally do find the quality in a manufacturing are much more stringent than current agile methodology.

The amount of “manual” testing and automation coverage was mind blowing at that time.

The “manual” testing comprises largely of QC checking, but the firmware and driver have > 40k test cases. Most of it are automated at firmware and driver level. Several test cases were written in C and at assembly. The rest were C++.

It can take weeks just to complete one automation test cycle and manual QC. There are coordination among a few departments in testing. The reason why it takes so long is unlike nowadays software where it can have almost an unlimited amount of patches and releases, there is no such luxury during that time. The release of the software driver and firmware may be the only single release as internet is not common. Hence tremendous of testing are done before each release, with audit. It was assumed that this release of firmware / driver and other software were the last release.

Surprisingly there were hardly complains on the software at that time compare to software nowadays.

Those were the waterfall days decades back. This was one case where the quality is superb overall in the old methodology, with comprehensive test coverage at different levels, and several processes to in check.

Source : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/software-quality-differences-from-manufacturing-throwback-ivan-tay