Case Study – STB Development and Acceptance Problems

Challenge

The Pay TV Satellite operator was bringing in a new STB, incorporating future capabilities for External PVR and Hybrid OTT application capability
The hardware was pretty standard but required integration with the complex satellite platform of the operator that made use of a wide variety of older STBs and Conditional Access technologies
Testing and acceptance problems were being identified, particularly with respect to meeting the product acceptance quality requirements of the parent company
There were clear indications that the product delivery was to be delayed to such an extent that summer sales targets and customer fulfillment would be impacted by a lack of inventory

We were brought in to make a quick improvement in the approach, working directly with the vendor to get improvements to the approach including the sufficient documentation for the product including consumer regulatory compliance
We worked with the contracted acceptance team to put in place good standards levels for test plans and acceptance sufficient to meet parent company requirements
We drove the vendor to accomplish the new integration work, particularly with respect to platform bugs affecting other STBs that needed to be worked around as fixes could not be deployed on those older platforms
Timeline for delivery was recovered and products were delivered into market in a timely fashion – ensuring the continuance of customer fulfilment