Parallel and sequential testing of design alternatives

An important managerial problem in product design in the,extent to which te sting activities are carried out in parallel or in series. Parallel testing has the advantage of proceeding more rapidly than serial testing but does not take advantage of the potential for learning between tests, thus result ing in a larger number of tests. We model this trade-off in the form of a d ynamic program and derive the optimal testing strategy (or mix of parallel and serial testing) that minimizes both the to;al cost and time of testing. We derive the optimal testing strategy as a function of testing cost, prio r knowledge, and testing lead time. Using information theory to measure the test efficiency, we further show that in the case of imperfect testing (du e to noise or simulated test conditions), the attractiveness of parallel st rategies decreases. Finally, we analyze the relationship between testing st rategies and the structure of design hierarchy. We show that a key benefit of modular product architecture lies in the reduction of testing cost.