Running the candidate tool on the agreed reference designs in an isolated environment, with every output checked against the known answer by engineers who own that flow step, to learn what the tool does well, where it fails and what it would take to use it on a live project.

Disciplines

Engineering leadership and sponsorship^D
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Pilot funded against the approved evaluation plan, with budget, people and an isolated environment committed.
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Business case updated with the pilot evidence and formal qualification funded.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Business case updated with the pilot evidence and formal qualification funded.
Adoption programme management^O
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Roadmap agreed with the evaluation plan: milestones, people and compute for the pilot and qualification.
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Roadmap agreed with the evaluation plan: milestones, people and compute for the pilot and qualification.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Plan extended from qualification to integration and first use, with dates and resources tracked.
CAD and flow engineering^D
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Evaluation plan written and approved: candidates, reference designs, success criteria and how each run will be set up.
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Pilot runs done on the reference designs with the tool, model and settings versions recorded, and the pilot results report issued.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.8, Qualified with limits. Tool, model and settings locked for qualification, then integrated in the controlled flow with logging, access controls, a passing regression suite and a tested fallback.
Machine learning and data engineering^O
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Pilot environment and data preparation planned for the named pilot data, isolated from production design data.^O
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Pilot environment complete and the reference data prepared, with a first data preparation pipeline.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.8, Qualified with limits. Model and data card complete for the qualified model, then the production data pipeline built in the integrated flow.
Design leads^A
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Use case requirements agreed with the evaluation plan: what a useful output looks like to the designers.
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Pilot outputs used and reviewed by designers, with their feedback recorded.^A
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.8, Qualified with limits. Failure modes from the qualification reviewed and the design review checklist updated for AI-assisted outputs.
Verification leads^A
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Independent checking approach outlined with the evaluation plan: how each success criterion will be checked against the known answers.
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Every pilot output checked independently against its known answer, with the review records kept.^A
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.8, Qualified with limits. Independent check method set for each catalogued failure mode, and the verification sign-off criteria updated for AI-assisted outputs.
Tool qualification and benchmarking^O
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Reference design set with known answers and the success criteria written and approved before any result is seen.^A
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Pilot outputs compared with the known answers and the measurement method tried on the reference set.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.8, Qualified with limits. Accuracy and repeatability measured on the full reference set, failure modes catalogued and the qualified scope stated, then the integration regression passed against that baseline.^A
IT security and infrastructure^O
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Pilot data handling approved for the named data only, with the pilot environment isolated.^O
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Pilot data handling approved for the named data only, with the pilot environment isolated.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Security assessment of the qualified tool and its hosting under way, with the data flows being mapped.
Legal, licensing and export control^O
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Evaluation agreement signed for the pilot, with confidentiality and no training on pilot data unless agreed.
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Evaluation agreement signed for the pilot, with confidentiality and no training on pilot data unless agreed.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Licence terms, training rights, output ownership and the export position under review for production use.
Quality and process assurance^AA
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.0, Proposed. Assurance approach agreed for the step: which quality procedures and any safety standard's tool classification will apply, with the assessment effort estimated; no assessment yet.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Tool confidence assessment completed for the qualified scope, including any tool classification a safety standard needs.^A
Design data management^O
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.0, Proposed. Data management needs agreed for the qualified scope: which results must be traceable, how long logs and data are kept and the storage to plan; no retention plan yet.
Tool supplier and licence management^A
- Tool Screening & Pilot Planning: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Candidate tool shortlist agreed, with the in-house option and existing tool features considered, and evaluation licences arranged.^A
- Pilot on a Bounded Design: maturity 0.3, Trial planned. Candidate tool shortlist agreed, with the in-house option and existing tool features considered, and evaluation licences arranged.
- Tool Qualification: maturity 0.5, Trialled. Supplier agreement negotiated and signed on the approved licence terms.

Pilot on a Bounded Design

Pilot on a Bounded Design

Where this stage sits

Stages

Adoption and governance milestones

Engineering and flow milestones

Disciplines

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