Testing is an important aspect of design and development which consumes significant time and resource in many companies. However, it has received less research attention than many other activities in product development, and especially, very few publications report empirical studies of engineering testing. Such studies are needed to establish the importance of testing and inform the development of pragmatic support methods. This paper combines insights from literature study with findings from three empirical studies of testing. The case studies concern incrementally developed complex products in the automotive domain. A description of testing practice as observed in these studies is provided, confirming that testing activities are used for multiple purposes depending on the context, and are intertwined with design from start to finish of the development process, not done after it as many models depict. Descriptive process models are developed to indicate some of the key insights, and opportunities for further research are suggested.

中文翻译：

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复杂产品的增量设计和开发中的测试

测试是设计和开发的一个重要方面，在许多公司中会消耗大量的时间和资源。然而，与产品开发中的许多其他活动相比，它受到的研究关注较少，尤其是很少有出版物报告工程测试的实证研究。需要此类研究来确定测试的重要性并为实用支持方法的开发提供信息。本文将文献研究的见解与三项测试实证研究的结果相结合。案例研究涉及汽车领域逐步开发的复杂产品。提供了在这些研究中观察到的测试实践的描述，确认测试活动根据上下文用于多种目的，并且从开发过程的开始到结束都与设计交织在一起，而不是像许多模型描述的那样在设计之后完成。开发了描述性过程模型以表明一些关键见解，并建议了进一步研究的机会。