I have something to ask of you on this, as you have been mentioning this statement in various flavours in the past also.

If testing can't prove a product what else can ?

While I appreciate your basic emphasis on "exhaustive field trials" there is also this case of " adequate for the purpose" and I am not talking of mission critical or medical applications.

Limited budget, unique projects, that have no precedence to fall back or experience to draw upon, will and shall be released for use with a testing that addresses the known issues at that moment in time. This kind of makes the client as a "beta tester" but with a clear understanding on the implications. If because of this, his factory goes up in smoke - so be it.

But unless tried where do you meet the pitfall ? A Boeing 747 weighing thousands of tonnes and design proved beyond doubt that it can take off, WILL bloody well HAVE to actually take off to become a commercial product. So where does one stop the trails and go with actuals ?

I am quite confuuoosed on this ... just asking this of you as you are involved in trhe design of commercial high volume products.


Raghu