Establish Product Integration Procedures and Criteria

Procedures for the integration of the product components can include such things as the number of incremental iterations to be performed and details of the expected tests and other evaluations to be carried out at each stage.

Criteria can indicate the readiness of a product component for integration or its acceptability.

Procedures and criteria for product integration address:

• Level of testing for build components
• Verification of interfaces
• Thresholds of performance deviation
• Derived requirements for the assembly and its external interfaces
• Allowable substitutions of components
• Testing environment parameters
• Limits on cost of testing
• Quality/cost tradeoffs for integration operations
• Probability of proper functioning
• Delivery rate and its variation
• Lead time from order to delivery
• Personnel availability
• Availability of the integration facility/line/environment

Criteria can be defined for how the product components are to be verified and the functions they are expected to have. Criteria can be defined for how the assembled product components and final integrated product are to be validated and delivered.

Criteria may also constrain the degree of simulation permitted for a product component to pass a test, or may constrain the environment to be used for the integration test.

• Identify the requirements for the product integration environment.
• Identify verification criteria and procedures for the product integration environment.
• Decide whether to make or buy the needed product integration environment.
• Establish and maintain product integration procedures for the product components.
• Establish and maintain criteria for product-component integration and evaluation.
• Establish and maintain criteria for validation and delivery of the integrated product.