In English a "Mule" is often used as a factory term for an item that is kept for work in house. By that I mean trying out materials, parts, accessories, testing ideas, looking for issues reported in by customers, in fact any task or investigation that might be needed with that product. It might also be used to loan out to outworkers, suppliers etc for evaluation, trials and learning.
When I was in industry, we kept 'mules' so that new software could be trialled, problems reported by customers investigated, etc. It is a bit like a reference model, but is available to be changed, worked and have ideas and situations trialled.
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