Closed Loop Verification Management

1. Is Closed Loop Verification a valuable proposition for aerospace companies and their suppliers?

Due to the absolute necessity of compliance and with increasingly stringent safety and sustainability mandates, certification is now characterised as one of the longest activities within the lifecycle of commercial aerospace programs. Verification, ensuring that the technical correctly matches specification, is an essential element of certification processes. Making sure these processes accurately track designs, and the evolution of development is a crucial part of project success and certification. Assertions by designers and engineers are not sufficient for validation, verification or importantly, certification purposes.

Historically, certification within the commercial aerospace industry has been achieved through physical testing; a new paradigm is emerging with software such as digital simulation, delivering an increasingly significant element of virtual certification. These new methods and tools deliver the necessary empirical proof that modifications do not invalidate previous certification. As the complexity of safety and sustainability requirements demanded by certification authorities increases, the traditional cross referencing between design and tested requirements becomes more prone to fracture, demanding new focus and more robust management of verification, validation and certification.

2. Who in the aerospace ecosystem will best benefit from applying Closed Loop Verification?

Any OEMs and product developers that require rigorous test and measurement environments. These are best supported through robust procedures coupled with accessible, objective evidence for verification and certification activities. In turn these procedures help to contain product scope. Companies across the supply chain need to provide objective evidence demonstrating compliance as with for example, sustainability, whereby compliance evidence of materials, components, subsystems and systems must be instantly accessible to many parties including the regulators. The more stringent the certification environment, the more onerous it becomes to deliver efficient management of verification and validation processes. This drives the need for new methods and technologies to mitigate increasing complexity and enhance the ability of verification engineers and those involved independent of design and manufacturing activities to better ensure compliance.

3. How might a company deliver more value and efficiencies from its verification and validation workflows?

If verification, validation and certification requirements can be incorporated earlier into the product lifecycle, as early as the concept stage, the risk of the unexpected reworks or scrap in the project’s evolution, can be reduced. Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methods and tools underpinning design and manufacturing processes, support planning and articulation of strategies and facilitate engineering advocacy for resources at an earlier stage. Early planning permits certification authorities to engage from the earliest stages of the program lifecycle, allowing upfront visibility of designs and promoting collaborative interactions that support proactive scheduling of certification activities.

Systems solutions as part of verification planning can check for sustainability requirements as the design progresses from its earliest stages. Compliant, sustainable deliverables are produced first time without the need for later stage modifications. With verification requests routed through workflows from the earliest stages of the program, requirements benefit from increased visibility, and additional insights into alternatives help support design decisions. By delivering verification as part of an open ecosystem, users are able to more easily integrate and expand capabilities within existing workflows with fewer disruptions to existing investments.

4. Delivering benefit through Closed Loop Verification

• Allows early allocation of resources necessary to satisfy verification and certification requirements.
• Reports on compliance are produced in parallel with design activities allowing users to find and fix issues quickly and track compliance data.
• Permits early scheduling of test resources, better articulating and maximising the use of test facilities and equipment.
• Encourages engagement with certifying authorities from earliest concept stages helping to schedule certification efficiently.
• Produces a complete summation of work for customer compliance reports, optimising certification process time and costs.

Connected verification and certification processes reduce unknown and unforeseen risks and costs, especially in testing and compliance, where certification costs can often exceed of the design program itself. Want to learn more?

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