Test sequencing in complex manufacturing systems.dvi

Testing complex manufacturing systems, such as an ASML [1] lithographic machine, takes up to 45% of the total development time of a system. The problem of which tests must be executed in what sequence to ensure in the shortest possible test time that the system works, the test sequencing problem, was already solved by Pattipati [2], [3] for the diagnosis of systems during operation. Test sequencing problems during the development and manufacturing phases of systems, however, require a different approach than test sequencing problems during operation. In this paper, the test problem description and algorithms developed by Pattipati are extended to solve test sequencing problems for the development and manufacturing of manufacturing systems. For a case-study in the manufacturing process of an ASML lithographic machine, it is shown that solving a test sequencing problem with this method can reduce test time by 15% to 30% compared to experts that solve this problem manually.