Test Talk Glossary
This Test Talk Glossary provides definitions for terminology Sente uses in delivering a more comprehensive, effective approach than solutions that are typically referred to as "asset management" or "test equipment management."
Accountability practices: Practices that measure and provide closed loop feedback regarding the compliance of practitioners, users, and managers to TRM processes. These practices are foundational to shifting the ineffective behaviors (such as hoarding) required to produce breakthrough results.
Asset management: The name given to a category of offers associated with managing capital equipment without purposeful and strategic connection to other capital structures.
Capital Structures: Structures that all businesses use to create wealth for the enterprise. Of particular focus for Sente are our customers' equipment capital, human capital, operating capital, financial capital and capital budgets. Through effective management of an enterprise's capital structures in test / technology, test functions can be made more effective, freeing up "test capital structures" to be transformed and leveraged more strategically for the enterprise.
Change management: The common description given to the set of practices used by many companies to reduce the risk of failure of a project that requires new practices be adopted to be successful. The reason we claim that Change Management is in the DNA of our solutions is that we include proven change strategies with our offers backed up by the practices that make them successful – such as rigorous Communication Plans, Accountability Practices, Real-Time Metrics and focused Training Regimens.
Hoarding: A practice used by equipment users to ensure they have availability of equipment when they need it. It's often the most effective strategy for users to meet schedule deadlines and avoid performance penalties. Users hoard small devices (by squirreling them away in a corner no one else knows about) and big devices (large monument size, fixed test equipment) by scheduling themselves on a larger fixed asset just-in-case.
Holistic approach: One that is whole and complete along multiple different continuums. TRM is holistic from a process perspective because it is a "womb to tomb" solution caring for test infrastructure from initial plans through acquisition, use, service and disposal. It's also holistic from an asset perspective because it includes ALL test assets – large "monument" test assets; general purpose re-deployable assets; and software and project specific assets like cables, break-out boxes and fixtures. Finally, TRM is holistic in its overall approach because it includes process, people and tools components.
Test environment: Sente uses the term "test environment" to describe the complex web of people, tools, practices and roles that drives the execution of mission-critical product testing functions. In many companies, the test environment represents an untapped source for dramatic improvements in profitability, time-to-market and engineering productivity.
Total cost of ownership: A financial model that produces an accounting of the efficiency improvements made to the capital structures in test and their pro-forma impacts to an enterprise's balance sheet and income statement.
TRM™: Test Resource Management: More than a software solution, TRM encompasses the complete set of practices, software tools and expertise Sente uses to optimize the capital structures dedicated by an enterprise to the fulfillment of their obligations in test.
Utilization: A measurement of the effective use of capital equipment and human capital.
