Richard,

you still are talking about mass production (HDD, split site manufacturing etc).

The process I am referring to is performed at the end of manufacturing in small-medium companies, where often there is no firmly established process of final testing etc., which could be then performed routinely by anybody or even by machines.

So, after the product ahs been assembled by relatively unskilled personnel, skilled/trained/educated people are used to perform the "smoke test" (initial powerup), rudimentary function testing, programming, setting up; and if necessary, debugging and rework. In small enterprises (~10) this is often the designer of the gadget himself; in medium companies (~100) this might be a specialist, often also providing installation, service, maintenance.

By now, I am almost sure there is no single term for this process in english (and neither is a derived noun to label those who perform it), so I can't simply translate our procedures word-for-word, but I have to use an ad-hoc description each time I need it.


Jan