How Experience with DO-178 Translates to Other Industries

Providing end-to-end service and serving our customers throughout the entire product design process are two of the greatest benefits of the recent merging of CertTech and WTI. CertTech brings to the table vast expertise performing in-depth analysis of high-level product requirements in order to define the necessary test cases to get the product certified. WTI, as you know, brings a proficiency in designing and building test equipment that can execute those test cases to ensure regulatory compliance. The experience of both companies resides heavily in the aerospace industry. This experience with stringent aerospace standards (like DO-178, which has become a standard for standards) is easily translated to other industries, including automotive and medical devices.

V diagram

Figure 1. V-Model Diagram of a product design process, showing historical expertise for both CertTech and WTI. With the recent merging, the combined organization offers a breadth and depth of support throughout the entire process.

Strict development standards help to ensure that upon certification, products are complete, correct, and serve their intended function in a safe and reliable manner. Standards across industries are similar in that most include a graduated risk-based approach, where the more critical a component is, the more rigorous the development process. These standards are written to define what needs to be done in order to receive certification, but they do not explain how to comply with the requirements they define. That's where CertTech and WTI come in.

One of the strictest standards in the aerospace industry is DO-178 – often referred to as the gold standard. DO-178 is a comprehensive guideline for the development of airborne software. First published in 1980, it defined a scale of process rigor based on the impact of software failure (the greater the impact of failure, the stricter the development process).

The model established by DO-178 is used in other aerospace standards and in standards used to certify automotive, medical device, and other products.  Because of that connection, CertTech's 20+ years of experience in working with aerospace OEMs to define test cases and test system infrastructure requirements and WTI's experience in designing and building the equipment to perform those test cases can add collective value beyond the aerospace industry. 

Want to learn more? Download our white paper, "Translating Experience from Aerospace to Other Industries."

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About Genuen

Our goal is to improve time to market without compromising product quality or safety standards. With experience in mission-critical applications and regulatory compliance, Genuen creates custom test systems across the product lifecycle, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), fluid power test, and electromechanical test. Headquartered near Kansas City, we have offices across the United States and serve clients in aerospace, transportation, national security, and beyond. The company's Quality Management System (QMS) is certified to ISO 9001.