A study, prepared by Strategy Analytics, predicts autonomous vehicles will create a massive economic opportunity that will scale from $800 billion in 2035 (the base year of the study) to $7 trillion by 2050. An estimated 585,000 lives could be saved due to autonomous vehicles between 2035 and 2045, the study predicts.​

While science fiction movies of the 20th century predicted that we’d have flying cars by now, it appears that there are a different set of overarching themes in the auto industry currently on the cusp of becoming a widespread reality. Electric power and the discussion around emissions, has arguably received the most media attention, however other trends such as vehicle sharing, and vehicles being connected to the internet and each other are also becoming prominent. A yearly updating model, where both software and hardware (particularly in fleets), will also become relevant to reflect rapid changes in technology. The final trend is perhaps one with the most technological challenges, and the greatest implication for changing how humans interact with cars (and transport in general): autonomous vehicles.​

An autonomous vehicle (also called a driver-less or self-driving vehicle) is one that senses its environment and operates without any human involvement. Companies such as Waymo, Uber, Tesla, and a myriad of others have been testing solutions for many years, however the task of testing and validating driverless vehicle technology comes with an array of challenges. Coupled with the fact that lives are at stake (both for passengers and pedestrians), there is little room for error. So what are the challenges facing autonomous vehicle testing and validation?​

Let’s start with the issue of gathering enough data, which needs to be collected both from vehicle sensors and from external sources, which is then used to train AI models. While real-world testing offers valuable feedback, there is the difficulty of scaling, where it is physically infeasible to run the millions of miles of tests required to gather enough data. Additionally, there is a need for test commonality, whereby identical tests are run with different types of vehicles. So how does such a large number of tests get carried out in an appropriate time frame? The answer lies in parallelized computer simulations, where, in the case of Waymo, they can achieve around 20 million miles a day in their Carcraft simulation platform (the equivalent of 100 years of driving on public roads). Waymo Driver, the company’s autonomous vehicle software suite, has reportedly accumulated over 15 billion simulated autonomous miles as of April 2020.​

The AI that drives a vehicle needs to also take into account various nuances during the vehicle’s operation, including the comfort of its passengers, which can sometimes be an overlooked factor during the testing process, which is why Waymo takes into account what it calls “Comfort Metrics”. Jonathan Karmel, Product Lead, Simulation & Automation at Waymo explained to VentureBeat that “Some of the key components are things like acceleration and deceleration, and we want to receive that information into simulation to predict what we think a rider or driver reaction would have been in the real world. There’s a machine learning model to predict what those reactions are in (Carcraft).”​

In today's highly competitive business landscape, ensuring the quality of products and services has become paramount. Quality assurance services play a crucial role in this pursuit, serving as the backbone for businesses striving to meet and exceed customer expectations. This article explores the significance of QA services, their key components, and the benefits they bring to businesses.

Key Components of Quality Assurance Services:

Testing and Validation: QA services encompass a comprehensive testing process to identify and rectify any defects or inconsistencies in a product or service. This includes functional testing, performance testing, security testing, and more. Through rigorous testing, QA services ensure that the end product meets the specified requirements and operates seamlessly.

Process Improvement: QA services focus on optimizing and refining business processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. This involves evaluating existing workflows, identifying bottlenecks, and implementing improvements. Continuous process enhancement is integral to maintaining a high level of quality across all aspects of a business.

Compliance and Standards: QA services ensure that products and processes adhere to industry-specific standards and regulations. This is particularly crucial in sectors such as healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, where compliance with standards is mandatory. QA services help businesses navigate complex regulatory landscapes and avoid legal implications.

Risk Management: Identifying and mitigating risks is a fundamental aspect of QA services. By conducting risk assessments, QA professionals can anticipate potential challenges and develop strategies to minimize their impact. This proactive approach enhances the overall resilience of a business.

Customer Satisfaction: Ultimately, the goal of QA services is to deliver products and services that satisfy customer expectations. By consistently ensuring quality, businesses can build trust with their customer base, leading to increased loyalty and positive brand perception.

Benefits of Quality Assurance Services:

Enhanced Productivity: QA services contribute to increased productivity by streamlining processes and minimizing errors. This efficiency boost translates into faster product development cycles and more timely service delivery.

Cost Savings: Detecting and addressing defects early in the development process is more cost-effective than fixing issues post-implementation. QA services help businesses identify potential problems before they escalate, reducing the overall cost of quality.

Improved Reputation: A commitment to quality through QA services enhances a company's reputation in the market. Positive customer experiences lead to word-of-mouth recommendations, attracting new customers and fostering long-term relationships.

Market Competitiveness: In highly competitive industries, maintaining high-quality standards is a differentiator. QA services give businesses a competitive edge by ensuring that their products and services consistently meet or exceed industry benchmarks.

Regulatory Compliance: For industries with stringent regulatory requirements, QA services provide the necessary assurance that products and processes comply with applicable standards. This is essential for avoiding legal issues and maintaining the trust of stakeholders.

Testing and validation of decontamination and sterilisation equipment is a vital aspect of every practice’s decontamination procedures and should be clearly laid down in their infection control policy. This equipment is at the forefront of the battle against protein residues and cross contamination so ensuring it is operating according to manufacturers’ specifications is an important first step in identifying possible shortfalls in performance.

Validation provides a guarantee that decontamination equipment is working to manufacturer’s specifications, showing it complies with CE-marking under the terms of the Medical Devices regulations and that all instruments cleaned by the equipment are reprocessed reliably and consistently.

 Testing, on the other hand refers to the routine tests that must be carried out on a daily, weekly or quarterly basis to ensure that equipment meets validated parameters. The results of these tests should be accurately recorded to provide the evidence of compliance that is required by the relevant regulatory bodies.

For example, a weekly protein residue test is a simple but crucial test designed to detect residual proteins left behind on dental instruments and therefore assess the effectiveness of the equipment in terms of protein removal. This test is carried out on instruments cleaned in both washer disinfectors and ultrasonic baths. Washer disinfectors and ultrasonic baths should also be routinely checked, according to manufacturers’ instructions using a simple efficacy, or soil test, which identifies any problems with cleaning processes such as clogged or broken spray arms or deficiencies in the detergent used.

 Dentisan has long been at the forefront of testing and validation requirements and offers a full range of tests that a practice needs to fully audit the performance of washer disinfectors, ultrasonic cleaners and autoclaves on a daily, weekly and quarterly basis. Distributed via Henry Schein Dental, dentisan’s complete range of testing and validation indicators, provides total peace of mind and evidence of compliance for every dental practice.

PART 2 - TESTING AND VALIDATION METHODS

Corporate Contacts (were used as part of the tests of hypothesis 5 and 7) – we have also had to contact some companies to access their interest in being our business partners. As part of the hypothesis testing we have contacted the Portuguese Post Office company, which is undergoing a major internal restructuring as part of their privatization initiative by undergoing an IPO, through its Academic Support Department contact, Mário Nobre. Although they valued our Entrepreneurial spirit and the idea, they said it would not be aligned with their core business activity but they thought we could achieve going step by step with our own distribution system. As part of the hypothesis testing we also contacted Natália Santos, from Oriflame (a cosmetic company) to access their interest in promoting their products by giving away free testers to our customers (which would be handed upon the delivery of the cleaned clothes) and paying us an advertisement fee. Although we are still talking to them (it’s a busy period for them), they believe their atomized individual vendors Business Model is not compatible means they don’t need this type of targeted advertising, but still they are accessing the overall potentialities of such idea, but we should start contact other companies like L’Óreal.

Wizard of Oz (was used as part of the tests of hypothesis 6) – finally, after we received our first orders upon launching the online order form on the 16th of November, we actually decided to simulate the service by our own with Ana (the first client, and also our very kind photo-shoot model, that we have already introduced to you here). Not only we have managed to talk to some local laundries, like the one we chose to drop out the clothes because it was the closest one (Lavandaria Europass), we have managed to discuss how the distribution process would be done and to estimate some costs. In Ana’s case, we used one of our group member’s car, a Smart for two, which has a gas spending performance of 6,5 litres / 100 km. From Ana’s place to a unique Lisbon central laundry, which would be interested and have the capacity to access all of our orders (like 5 à Sec’s Colombo laundry), would take us an average of 18km (pick-up and delivery) and with an average gas price of 1,54€ it would take us more than 27€ to do the distribution. As if we used the local laundry we would take less than 2km. By using 0 to 5 km local laundries radius we could drop the prices by at least 50% (compared to only using few centralized laundries with a minimum of 10km radius).

PART 1 - TESTING AND VALIDATION METHOD

Throughout the course we were taught several methods that we could later on use to test some of our hypothesis and have more valuable validations.

Interviews (were used as part of the tests of hypothesis 1, 2, 3 and 8) – One of the first most valuable methods we were taught were interviews, which are very valuable due to their face-to-face questioning characteristics. Although we still followed a script doing both the interviews to Students and Businessman (you can find the Script and Form used for Students and the Script and Form used for the Businessman in the links provided), the fact we were talking directly to one person allowed us to see their reactions to some of our questions and to develop some points which were spontaneously raised by the interviewee and were interesting for us. For example, it was due to interviews that we managed to cut off the idea of the public hotspots to drop out clothes and also that we should concentrate more on having an efficient distribution system that worked with a network of local laundries. We were surprised that most interviewees raised more privacy concerns rather than the expected security concerns, because they didn’t wanted to people see them dropping out dirty clothes. In total, we managed to do 35 interviews to Students (10 to non-local Portuguese students and 25 to international students) and 15 to Portuguese Businessman. The interviews were also useful to gain some first-hand insight of their perception on existing laundry services (which they believe they have good quality standards), but they still would value more a time saving service. It was also interest to see the ability to pay a premium fee for our service, even students, although they all placed the premium interest at the lower end, i.e., 0,5€ maximum premium.

Survey (were used as part of the tests of hypothesis 1,2,3,4, 8 and 10) – Although interviews are useful to gain first hand insights about what our customers think about some issues, they have a reach limitation since you can’t do interviews with hundreds of people without losing hundreds of hours. To gain insights of more objective questionings surveys are more efficient, and that’s why we have created a general survey for both our Customer Segments where we tried to feel their opinion about some particular issues using most entirely objective answers (you can find the Survey here). With this method we have managed to raise more than 178 replies, being 81% of the total responses from the Businessman (we really pushed to have more Businessman answers using close contacts to compensate the fewer Interviews done). The answers were particularly useful to check that our customers value a time saving service but have a lack of interest for our personalized box. It was also good to confirm the overwhelming interest in paying for an extra premium for using our service (only 10% of the people who answered the survey were not willing to pay an extra for it).