Towards integration as a non-event: MBT experiences with electron microscopes

In order to manage the increasing complexity of the electron microscopes software, Thermo Fisher Scientific started a journey almost 2 years ago: apply Model-based testing in software development teams. Manual testing practices are not scalable enough to address the complexity in combination with the increased speed of development and configuration diversity. Therefor we need advanced test automation methods to achieve high automated test coverage. In Model-based testing (MBT) test cases are generated automatically based on a formal model describing the behavior of a system, similar to code generation where we focus on the design of the system. Despite a steep learning curve of the methodology, the results in multiple teams look very promising. These teams show a decrease in the defect leakage (less defects at customers) and higher speed of development cycle (more features delivered to customers). This shows that MBT is the next step in test automation. Therefor I strongly believe that MBT will be applied in more and more projects in the future. I will share the experiences by describing: • The benefits and steps to get started with MBT • Practical recommendations that helped us with challenges encountered • Metrics program to continuously show the added value