engineering

Verification and validation

Verification and validation is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Verification and validation rather than just read about it. In short: Verification and validation (also abbreviated as V&V) are independent procedures that are used together for checking that a product, service, or system meets requirements and specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose. These are critical components of a quality management system such as ISO 9000.

Key takeaways

Verification and validation belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Verification and validation to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Verification and validation from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Verification and validation (also abbreviated as V&V) are independent procedures that are used together for checking that a product, service, or system meets requirements and specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose. These are critical components of a quality management system such as ISO 9000. The words "verification" and "validation" are sometimes preceded with "independent", indicating that the verification and validation is to be performed by a disinterested third party. "Independent verification and validation" can be abbreviated as "IV&V". In reality, as quality management terms, the definitions of verification and validation can be inconsistent. Sometimes they are even used interchangeably. However, the PMBOK guide, a standard adopted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), defines them as follows in its 4th edition:

"Validation. The assurance that a product, service, or system meets the needs of the customer and other identified stakeholders. It often involves acceptance and suitability with external customers. Contrast with verification." "Verification. The evaluation of whether or not a product, service, or system complies with a regulation, requirement, specification, or imposed condition. It is often an internal process. Contrast with validation." Similarly, for a Medical device, the FDA (21 CFR) defines Validation and Verification as procedures that ensures that the device fulfil their intended purpose.

Validation: Ensuring that the device meets the needs and requirements of its intended users and the intended use environment. Verification: Ensuring that the device meets its specified design requirements ISO 9001:2015 (Quality management systems requirements) makes the following distinction between the two activities, when describing design and development controls:

Validation activities are conducted to ensure that the resulting products and services meet the requirements for the specified application or intended use. Verification activities are conducted to ensure that the design and development outputs meet the input requirements. It also notes that verification and validation have distinct purposes but can be conducted separately or in any combination, as is suitable for the products and services of the organization. The National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Technology Laboratory Computer Security Resource Center has a variety of definitions for both validation and verification

Validation - The first definition indicates confirmation (through the provision of strong, sound, objective evidence) that requirements for a specific intended use or application have been fulfilled. However, within the family of definitions, it is frequently used in a manner synonymous with verification. Verification - often used to indicate a persona or identity has been verified against a database, such as a PIN-protected identify certificate matches a controlled access list.

Overview

Verification Verification is intended to check that a product, service, or system meets a set of design specifications. In the development phase, verification procedures involve performing special tests to model or simulate a portion, or the entirety, of a product, service, or system, then performing a review or analysis of the modeling results. In the post-development phase, verification procedures involve regularly repeating tests devised specifically to ensure that the product, service, or system continues to meet the initial design requirements, specifications, and regulations as time progresses. It is a process that is used to evaluate whether a product, service, or system complies with regulations, specifications, or conditions imposed at the start of a development phase. Verification can be in development, scale-up, or production. This is often an internal process.

Validation Validation is intended to ensure a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) results in a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) that meets the operational needs of the user. For a new development flow or verification flow, validation procedures may involve modeling either flow and using simulations to predict faults or gaps that might lead to invalid or incomplete verification or development of a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof). A set of validation requirements (as defined by the user), specifications, and regulations may then be used as a basis for qualifying a development flow or verification flow for a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof). Additional validation procedures also include those that are designed specifically to ensure that modifications made to an existing qualified development flow or verification flow will have the effect of producing a product, service, or system (or portion thereof, or set thereof) that meets the initial design requirements, specifications, and regulations; these validations help to keep the flow qualified. It is a process of establishing evidence that provides a high degree of assurance that a product, service, or system accomplishes its intended requirements. This often involves acceptance of fitness for purpose with end users and other product stakeholders. This is often an external process. It is sometimes said that validation can be expressed by the query "Are you building the right thing?" and verification by "Are you building it right?". "Building the right thing" refers back to the user's needs, while "building it right" checks that the specifications are correctly implemented by the system. In some contexts, it is required to have written requirements for both as well as formal procedures or protocols for determining compliance. It is entirely possible that a product passes when verified but fails when validated. This can happen when, say, a product is built as per the specifications but the specifications themselves fail to address the user's needs.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Verification and validation

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Verification and validation claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Verification and validation before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Verification and validation ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Verification and validation

In research: Verification and validation appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Verification and validation in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Verification and validation is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Drug manufacturing, Food safety, Product testing, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Verification and validation outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Verification and validation in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Verification and validation means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Verification and validation out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Verification and validation in simple terms?

Why does Verification and validation matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Verification and validation?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Verification and validation.