Testing

(while this article contains many general ideas, it is written from the perspective of product development.)

If you don’t continually improve, you soon lose the ability to do so …

This thought came after an associate described a company that is struggling to manufacture one of their products:

They have been making a product since way back in the last century. EOL (end-of-life) is catching up with them. The circuit is really hairy analog stuff with ridiculously high precision. Pots everywhere to get it dialed in. But their voltage regulator is drifting in value significantly, whereas the old parts are rock steady.

How do we get into situations like this, and how can they be avoided?