It's Just STE: Understanding the pitfalls of treating STE as second class equipment

In many organizations, development of Special Test Equipment (STE) is taken as an afterthought. Often, this is based on the assumption that, since the equipment will be on-site in the company's factory, correction of minor issues that might be caused by a non-robust development process can be easily addressed. In addition, STE development is sometimes viewed as a discipline not requiring special skills or significant experience. STE development roles are often filled with engineers without a current critical role or with inexperienced engineers to give them development experience. Given these conditions, companies can see STE development as an expensive and annoying necessity. In an effort to reduce this cost, the development process is minutely reviewed to find steps that can be omitted. When the totals are added up, it is usually discovered that many of the shortcuts taken actually increase the life-cycle cost of the STE.