Digital mesh is connecting people, devices, content and services together to support digital business. This mesh is digitally matured and intelligent (as artificial intelligence driven). So, it is known as “Intelligent Digital Mesh”. Gartner have announced “Intelligent Digital Mesh” as top 10 strategic technology trends at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Oct, 2016.
Digital mesh is based on top of device mesh. The device mesh is an expanding set of endpoints like mobile, wearable, consumer, home electronics, automotive and environmental devices, including sensors in the IoTs (Internet of Things).
Intelligent Digital Mesh – expectation:
We all know that digital transformation first edition was comprised of Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, Social Media, Big Data whereas digital transformation second edition is comprised of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Robotics Process Automation, Internet of Things on top of existing Mobile, Analytics, Cloud, Social Media, Big Data. A good example for digital transformation second version is Intelligent digital mesh.
Expectation is continuous rich digital services will be delivered to anywhere in any devices at any time to any user. Artificial intelligence will be embedded in everything, digital customer experience will be at best level and more importantly everything will be done behind the scenes, seamlessly & as quickly as possible. And this expectation is possible only because of intelligent digital mesh which comprises of people, devices, content and services. However, this must be done via accelerated delivery to be competitive in the market with different supported technologies as listed above. Accelerated delivery will make that possible.
Quality 4.0:
Quality 4.0 is a reference to Industry 4.0 (the fourth industrial revolution) originally addressed in Hanover, Germany in 2011. Quality 4.0 connects people, machines and data in new ways. Basically, quality 4.0 uses new technologies for existing quality methodologies, concepts for operational excellence, better quality, improved performance and enhanced end-user satisfaction. Quality 4.0 is not about replacing the traditional quality methods or processes, rather improving them and speed up the overall QA & testing process by using new technologies. The goal is to ensure quality product (in terms of all the quality attributes) with enhanced end-user satisfaction. Overall, quality 4.0 is for improved quality, less cost, more efficiency, more market share and better brand recognition.
Existing Methodologies & New Technologies:
Even though, quality 4.0 has many benefits, its adoption has been slow. Quality 4.0 strategy is about how the technologies can be applied to the existing QA & testing methodologies to ensure speed and accuracy in the overall QA & testing process. New technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Mobile technology, Automation, Augmented Reality (AR) & Virtual Reality (VR), Cloud technologies, Connected Devices, Big Data, Blockchain, Social Media can be used for quality 4.0 to ensure a quality product in all quality attributes and its end-user are overall satisfied.
Quality 4.0 mindset is Supportive:
Being a tester, my primary focus is on QA & testing. Intelligent digital mesh is an emerging technology which requires extensive and through end to end QA & testing. I personally feel quality 4.0 mindset is supportive for successful intelligent digital mesh. Intelligent digital mesh is about mesh of everything, used different set of technologies, digitally connected and use accelerated delivery concepts to achieve that. Today’s customer has changed. They always want more. They also want it fast. They want it delivered quickly from any interface or device. To be very frank, they don’t necessarily care about what channel they’re using. Nowadays customer facing components must be flexible, fast and friendlier. We need to have the right thing at the right place at the right time and this must be every time! This is the new customer experience. Intelligent digital mesh can be a solution for today’s demanding customer. If you just think about accelerated delivery that’s not enough for accelerated product. You must think about accelerated and accuracy of QA & testing process to achieve the overall goal of accelerated product. Accuracy in QA & testing is very important as the expectation of an end-user can be totally different from what the developers are making. Quality 4.0 mindset can be supportive for that. Quality 4.0 uses different technologies (for example: automation, analytics & speedy testing) to accelerate the overall QA & testing process and ensure accuracy in QA & testing. Successful intelligent digital mesh requires both speediness of delivery with fast & accuracy of
QA & Testing Methodologies
Intelligent digital mesh and quality 4.0 uses the same set of different technologies (as described above) to ensure ambient user experiences, offering end-users a seamless user journey. Both aim to reduce the overall product cost, intelligent digital mesh tries to ensure cost of delivery less, whereas quality 4.0 tries to ensure cost of QA & testing is less. Both intends for more automation and an efficient product. Both aim for successful digital transformation for end-user. Intelligent digital mesh is for digital transformation second version and quality 4.0 also about the digital transformation of quality management. Overall, both have a huge impact of digital transformation on its end-users. Intelligent digital mesh is for providing availability, scalability, modularity, adaptability, security & high performance. Quality 4.0 mindset is also on the same line and added advantage is that it also confirms that before the release. Both can make intelligent decision & data-driven decision using those above-said technologies. Intelligent digital mesh and quality 4.0 both are based on new technologies for better end-user experience, for enabling transformation of culture, for ensuring collaboration & compliance. Even though quality 4.0 is truly not about technology, however it is meant for the end-users of those new technologies.
Also, both intelligent digital mesh and quality 4.0 are looking to increase the product brand identity for making the product as a market leader & enduring in the market for long. Intelligent digital mesh is connected of everything like people, devices, content and services together. So, the QA & testing scope is very wide & diversified as so many different standalone & combined scenarios – devices, OS, browsers, networks, apps, cloud platforms, services for example. So, it is not possible to test all of them before the release. Else, product delivery will be very late. Here, this mindset will be helpful as quality 4.0 uses different technologies to automate and ensure speedy QA & Testing. This approach makes quality processes and outcomes more visible, connected and relevant. The Quality 4.0 mindset will be supportive for intelligent digital mesh-QA & testing. One more aspect is monitoring the product via digital experience monitoring after the release and proactively identify and resolve the issues before an end-user gets affected. Real user monitoring monitors all the scenarios proactively as it is not possible to test all possible combined scenarios in such a short span of time (testing duration) due to speedy delivery. Even this mindset is also talking about quality monitoring for enhanced user experience by proactively identifying the issue and resolve them at the earliest.
Quality 4.0 is a journey and it has an impact on QA & testing process, management system processes and overall culture. The same way quality 4.0 have an impact on intelligent digital mesh journey which mainly focused on QA & testing processes. In a nutshell, we can say that quality 4.0 mindset is supportive for successful intelligent digital mesh and both ensure successful digital transformation.
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References:
• https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-ten-technology-trends-signal-thedigital-mesh/
• https://www.dataversity.net/the-digital-mesh-how-is-it-changing-enterprises/
• https://www.gavstech.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/WP-Intelligent-DigitalMesh-Leading-the-Top-10-Strategic-Technology-Trends.pdf
• https://gcn.com/articles/2018/10/25/gartner-tech-trends.aspx
• https://gcn.com/Articles/2018/10/25/Gartner-tech-trends.aspx?Page=2
• https://qualityandinnovation.com/2018/01/02/what-is-quality-4-0/
• https://qualityandinnovation.com/2018/01/03/quality-4-0-and-digitaltransformation/
• https://blog.lnsresearch.com/quality40
• https://www.industries.veeva.com/blog/quality-4.0-qualitys-digital-transformation
• https://www.mastercontrol.com/gxp-lifeline/the-quality-leaders-guide-to-quality-4.0/
About Arun
Arun earned a degree in Computer science from Govt. Engineering College, India (college topper). He is having 13.5 years of managing E2E testing delivery experience in different types of applications. He has a keen interest in reading and writing different technical papers. He was selected in multiple international conferences; global webinars and his papers have been published in multiple forums. Currently, he is working as a Senior Test Manager in Atos-NAO & Global subdomain leader for Atos Expert: Application-Testing.
