Industrial Methods for the Effective Development and Testing of Defense Systems (2012) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Summary
Summary
Pages 1-10
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
to identify engineering practices that have proved successful for system development and testing in industrial environments. It is the latest in a series of studies by the National Research Council (NRC)
|
From page 2... ...
Although communication with users is common in defense acquisition, the emphasis at the workshop was on a continuous exchange with and involvement of users in the development of requirements. In addi tion, the industrial practice of asking customers to separate their needs into a list of "must haves" and a "wish list" forces customers to carefully examine a system's needs and capabilities and any discrepancies between them and thus make decisions early in the development process.
|
From page 3... ...
In addition to rigorously assessing the feasibility of proposed requirements and helping assess the results of "lowering" some requirements while "raising" others, model-based design tools are known to provide a range of benefits: a formal specification of the actual intent of the functionality, they document the requirements; the model is execut able, so any ambiguities can be identified; the model can be used to auto matically generate test suites; and, possibly most importantly, the model captures knowledge that can be preserved. DOD should have expertise in these tools and technologies and use them with contractors and users.
|
From page 4... ...
Technological immaturity is known to be a primary cause of schedule slippage and cost growth in DOD program acquisition. Many studies, including those of the National Research Council (2011)
|
From page 5... ...
Defense systems should not pass milestones unless there is objective quantitative evidence that major design thresholds, key performance parameters, and reliability criteria have been met or can be achieved with minor product improvements. Staged Development Conclusion 6: There are substantial benefits to the use of staged development, with multiple releases, of large complex systems, especially in the case of software systems and software-intensive systems.
|
From page 6... ...
• that testing should give greater emphasis to suitability (National Research Council, 1998) • the benefits from the use of accelerated reliability testing methods (National Research Council, 1998)
|
From page 7... ...
The collection and analysis of data on test and field performance, including warranty data, is a standard feature in commercial industries. The development of a data archive has been discussed in previous NRC reports, and we repeat its importance here.
|
From page 8... ...
effort to develop feedback loops on improving fielded sys tems and on better understanding tactics of use of fielded systems. The DOD acquisition and testing communities should also learn to use feedback loops to improve the process of system development, to improve developmental and operational test schemes, and to improve any modeling and simulation used to assess operational performance.
|
From page 9... ...
In contrast, in DOD the tenure of a program manager rarely covers more than one phase of a project, and there is little accountability. Moreover, there is little incentive for a DOD program manager to take a comprehensive approach to seek and discover system defects or design flaws.
|
From page 10... ...
, complemented by independent scientific expertise as needed, to address outstanding technical manufacturing and capability issues, to assess the progress of a defense system under the previous pro gram manager, and to ensure that the new program manager is fully informed of and calibrated to present and likely future OSD concerns. Clearly, there are many details and challenges associated with developing and implementing this recommendation that are beyond the panel's scope and expertise.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.