Abstract: A system and method for providing an intelligent wire testing capability for complex hardware systems. The system is comprised of a software application with a relational database interfacing with an automatic test equipment module. The relational database contains all of a system's architecture information plus all of the text and parametric information associated with the design. During a system test, the subject invention uses the wiring/system architecture as disclosed in the relational database together with an automatically generated test program to identify faults in a unit under test. Using the architecture knowledge, the subject invention is capable of automatically generating a wire harness schematic for printout or display on a CRT. The architecture knowledge also allows a technician to quickly distinguish between a broken wire and an unused pin in a connector. After the test, the observed values are stored in a testing results file for later review and trend analysis.