Final answer:
Validation in engineering ensures a product meets its requirements ('doing the thing right') and that these requirements are correctly aligned with business objectives. It involves distinguishing between correctly written requirements and the right requirements, encompassing criteria and constraints to guide the process.
Step-by-step explanation:
Validation is a critical concept in engineering design and development, encompassing different checks to ensure a product or system meets the intended requirements and purposes. When discussing validation, two specific aspects come to the forefront:
- Ensuring the product is being designed and developed correctly in accordance with predefined requirements, which is often termed as 'doing the thing right'.
- Verifying that the right requirements have been established in the first place, ensuring they align with and trace back to business objectives or the intended purpose of the product.
While validation focuses on the former—confirming that the end product meets its intended use and specifications—validating requirements relates to the latter, determining if the correct problems are being addressed and the right goals set. It is imperative to differentiate between writing the requirements right (concerned with the properties and clarity of the requirements) and writing the right requirements (concerned with the alignment of requirements with business or project objectives).
Criteria and constraints play a substantial role in both validation processes. Criteria refer to measurable values or standards that must be met, while constraints are specific conditions or limitations that the design must satisfy. Both aid in guiding the validation by providing a framework through which the product or system can be objectively assessed. Hence, properly validated designs not only fulfill the technical specifications laid out in the requirements but also account for practical constraints such as cost, safety, and environmental considerations.