TABLE OF CONTENTS The customers of large systems are, or should be, very careful to assure that the products they acquire are precisely what they intended to purchase. Therefore, they should insist on some form of proof that the product does satisfy some criteria of goodness prior to accepting delivery of the product. The requirements that should have driven the design effort are a sound basis for that criterion. We have seen in the prior discussion of qualification how the requirements are the foundation for the whole qualification cycle. Those requirements were contained in development, Part I, or performance specifications, depending on what standard you refer to. The specification that contains the requirements we are interested in for acceptance is variously called a product, Part II, or detail specification. The performance specification content should be solution independent to the maximum extent possible in that this specification should describe the problem to be solved. The detail specification requirements should be solution dependent in that they are describing features of the actual design that will be used as the basis for acceptability.
The testing work done in association with development (i.e., qualification) is normally accomplished only once unless there are significant changes that invalidate some portion of the results, such as a major modification, change in the source of an end item...
