Statistics, Testing, and Defense Acquisition New Approaches and Methodological Improvements (1998) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix C A Potential Taxonomy for Operational Tests
Appendix C A Potential Taxonomy for Operational Tests
Pages 194-203
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From page 194... ...
Certainly, when a member of the relevant service test agency is called upon to design a test for a system, if a similar system could be discovered that was considered to have been well-tested in the past, it would make sense to borrow certain features of that previous test to use on the new system, especially if the previous system was tested relatively recently. Unfortunately, it would seem that a taxonomy that could encompass such diversity would necessarily have a large number of cells, and that would require a large number of well-designed, fully analyzed tests that covered the range of DoD operational test experience.
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From page 195... ...
The panel's taxonomy has a broader conceptual base and utility than test design, however. A proper taxonomy entails notions of the loss function underlying the decision of whether to enter into full-rate production since that is the purpose of operational test and as discussed above, this decision directly involves the issue of test benefit versus test cost.
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From page 196... ...
So the goal of a taxonomy is a way of formalizing a decomposition of variance of the system as a function of various characteristics of the situations in which the system might be used.
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From page 198... ...
This category is for scripted unmanned opposition which is under total control of the test designer. Included among this type of opposition is scripted jamming of a communication network and the emplacement of an enemy minefield.
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From page 199... ...
The higher the skill level required, the greater the importance of adequate training. For those systems requiring highly skilled operators, testing should be conducted to assess whether the training is adequate.
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From page 200... ...
All of these affect the active opposition in a similar manner to how they affect the system under test. In such tests, the designer should concentrate on three things: control unwanted variability to the extent possible, design for event based data rather than trial based data, and design for evaluation of the system using qualitative measures.
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From page 201... ...
Proposed Taxonomy Figure C-1 is a graphic representation of a proposed taxonomy for operational test that the panel believes represents a good first step towards the development of a taxonomy that categorizes defense systems by the type of operational test that is needed. If such a taxonomy is found useful, to operationalize this taxonomy an example system in each cell would have to be identified that had gone through operational test recently, and a well-designed test would have to be drawn up through a collaboration of test experts in the relevant test service agency, DOT&E, IDA and possibly statistical experts from academia.2 Then, new entrants to each cell could make use of minor adjustments to operational test designs of the leading case in the cell.
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From page 202... ...
HM: High; multifaceted training; HL: High; limited training; L: Low
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From page 203... ...
Mines (Emplaced) 9 Mine Detection Equpment Mine Clearing Devices 14 Bradley Amphibious 23 Rifles Machine Guns Pistols Dragon Tow Stinger 29 Defensive Emplacements FIGURE C-2 Examples of defense systems in the proposed taxonomy.
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