How to calibrate or validate a test software to conform with 4.11

[thanhhx]

My company is prepararing for ISO 9002. We assembly PCs (parts are purchased from different suppliers).
We use a test sofware (e.g AMIDIag) to verify our assemblled PC.
My question: how to calibrate or validate a test software to conform with 4.11 ?
Any suggestions will help.

 

[Jerry Eldred]

I don't think you can fairly 'calibrate' the software, as that would require that you could compare it against some known standards (measurement standards - pieces of higher accuracy test equipment with certificates of calibration traceable to national standards, and so forth).

The remaining possibility would seem to be 'validation'. To validate the software, you would need known good parameters and known bad parameters to test the softwares ability to discern between pass and fail conditions.

The other possibility might be to get some sort of certification or documentation from the software vendor. If they are ISO or QS9000 certified, they may keep documentation as to how they validated the software. Those are just some preliminary ideas.

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[thanhhx]

Thanks for your input, Jerry.
I already asked the vendor. They said that they forwarded my question to their software engineer and asked me to wait...hm.
My true feeling is that I can not do anything with the commercial software (it's fixed) except for the measurement "process" (disk protection "Void if broken", trained testers, instructions of how to read the test reports etc.).
May I use the "try-and-error" method (test some well running computers maybe with diferrent configuration settings and see if the test reports are OK) ?

 

[Marc]

Originally posted by thanhhx:

I already asked the vendor. They said that they forwarded my question to their software engineer and asked me to wait...hm.

Keep bugging them and let us know what they say. I do have a couple of comments, but I'm feeling 'under the weather' so will put off until tomorrow. Gittin tired and cranky.