Designing a comprehensive and successful test procedure requires a great deal of input from the test measurement professional. Laboratory tests are expensive to design, assemble, instrument, and carry out. Often there is only one chance to obtain the required measurements before part of the test equipment is altered or destroyed by the test.

It is almost always less expensive to spend time and money on a thorough preparation than to repeat a test because one or more items were not considered when the test was planned. Such preparation should entail gaining input from all sections of the group involved in the project. This can include design engineering, management, quality assurance, test rig designers, test measurement professionals, and test operators. All these sections should meet and come to a complete understanding on the test requirements, test procedures, and test design. Additional meetings between participating sections should be held to complete the details of the test design. Nothing is more counterproductive than to have a test rig designer finish constructing the rig without first consulting the test measurement staff. In this case, the test instrumentation would have to be jury-rigged onto the test equipment in an inefficient and suboptimum manner. There is often no space allocated to install instrumentation or to route wires and cables.

The following sections discuss information that the test measurement professional is responsible for understanding and inputting into the test design process.