01-1 Conformance testing - extraordinary actions
The Extraordinary General Meeting
As the Blue Book, the Green Book and the international standardisation process by the IEC reaches the final stage and products and system start to hit the market, the next hot item in the DLMS UA is conformance testing and labelling. The process of conformance testing is shown on the Figure. Using conformance test, providers of metering equipment and systems will be able to prove that their implementations are in compliance with the specification. The existence of such a test will contribute to interoperability and will further bring system integration and maintenance costs down.
The Working Group Conformance Testing has developed during the last year the test plans and obtained offers from leading conformance test houses to develop the tests. The progress have been reviewed and next steps have been decided during the Management Committee Meeting of 30 Nov. 2000 and the Extraordinary General Meeting, which took place on 6 December 2000 in Zurich.
The President of the DLMS User Association explained the results of the activities of the Working Group and the key criteria for conformance testing. He gave an overview of the offers and made his recommendations, which have been approved.
During the meeting it became clear, that the funds available - although the number of interested members has increased - are not sufficient at this point to develop a very sophisticated conformance test tool with the preferred vendor.
Therefore the work has been referred back to the Working group, with the following guidelines:
- The solution must provide a reasonable guarantee of interoperability.
- All features of the specification implemented in a device must be tested and criteria shall be met to able to claim compliance.
- The costs of the solution must remain within the budget available.
- The tool must be adequately maintained and must be open to future evolution.
This means, that a sound compromise has to be found between the number of test cases and the costs.
But there is no doubt: within short, the DLMS User Association will be capable to publish lists with conformant products and to fulfil Art. 2 of the statutes: " … defining criteria to apply for a Protocol conformance label. The owner of the label shall be the Association …".