Enveloping test requirements across product life cycle phases

With the total cost of test increasing over the life cycle of a product, there is an urgent need to "reduce the cost of test". This concept does not just address the high cost of test equipment, but rather looks at all aspects of test from requirements generation, to development, production, and post-production support at a depot or in the field. These aspects must be integrated together using a systems engineering approach. The result will be multiple requirements for the various test aspects. All these requirements must be gathered at the earliest stages of a program. In order to ensure that these test requirements are met over the life of the product, they need to be enveloped, or made broad enough to cover the spectrum of requirements that is required over the life cycle.