Functional Verification Through Automated Testing & Error Injection

Client's Overview:

The world leader and the largest manufacturer of water heating products from North America, globally recognized for their heating, cooling and commercial refrigeration products.

Challenges:

A product manufacturer required functional system testing to verify that a product consisting of multiple interacting units and peripheral controls behaved functionally as intended.

Solution and Approach:

The testing involved the product under test, peripheral controllers, and software used for command, monitoring, and logging.

Test Case Generation

Requirements were converted into structured test cases to verify that the product behaved functionally as intended by the end user.

Functional Test Coverage & Methodology

The testing methodology included:

Black-box testing
Test prioritization to test critical functions first
Requirement-to-test-case traceability
Test-case review for logic, accuracy, and completeness
Review involving the complete testing team

Test Automation

Test cases were automated using Robot Framework scripting. The keyword-driven approach enabled the creation of readable test scripts and automated test execution.

The automation setup also supported:

Test scheduling
Batch testing
Regression testing
Automated generation of detailed test reports and logs
Recording of execution time and error messages
Screenshots when failures occurred

Error Injection

Automated relay control was used for error injection and for simulating product inputs and outputs during testing. Multiple relays were connected to feedback elements, allowing different input/output conditions to be simulated during test execution.

Outcome:

The approach enabled structured functional verification through requirements-based test cases, automated execution, regression testing, detailed reporting, and controlled error injection.