A global automotive supplier, Brose Group, operates in a highly complex manufacturing environment. Ensuring seamless interactions between its manufacturing execution system (MES) and various external systems was critical to maintaining smooth operations across the shop floor.
Brose Group's stakeholders wanted to minimize bottlenecks in production to ensure the highest product quality and the fastest possible production speed. To achieve this objective, they first needed to eliminate existing highly time-consuming manual testing processes. The decision was made to turn Andea’s Project Excellence team for help in streamlining production operations through a proven automated testing framework.
At times, Brose Group’s manual testing process required up to two weeks to execute just 34 production scenarios, involving skilled resources in repetitive, mundane tasks. Additionally, the lack of automation limited the ability to effectively simulate real-world production equipment, making it harder to detect and resolve potential issues. The company needed a robust testing solution that integrated with their existing systems, offered accurate simulations, and provided realistic and actionable insights.
Andea’s Project Excellence team designed a Python-based automated testing framework tailored to Brose Group’s requirements. This framework integrated seamlessly with their existing architecture, streamlining the testing process while simulating a full production environment.
The automated testing solution enabled Brose Group to create production orders and simulate machine behaviors, as well as generate and configure products, work centers, modules, and stations, just like in a real shop-floor environment. The framework even allowed for aligning the required matrix data it encountered to ensure effective master data management.
Integration with Azure DevOps was a key aspect of our testing framework, enabling automatic reporting of pass/fail criteria and providing Brose Group with quick issue identification and simplified troubleshooting. Additionally, the framework enabled automated test result recording, so should a failure occur, its reasons were also visible in Azure DevOps.
The results were remarkable. Tasks that once took two weeks of manual testing were now completed in three hours, with over 600 unique steps executed automatically. The framework produced 350 products and generated 900 messages simulating external systems, all while maintaining the required accuracy and reliability.
By automating testing processes, Brose Group not only ensured faster regression checks but also minimized the need for human involvement. Ultimately, Andea’s Project Excellence team empowered Brose Group to achieve its objective of ensuring faster feedback loops, enhanced production quality, and significant reductions in repetitive tasks.
The accuracy and consistency of Andea’s test automation helped us identify and resolve issues early in the development cycle, which prevented costly fixes later on. This proactive approach not only saved us money but also improved the overall quality of our products, enhancing user satisfaction and reducing post-release support efforts.
