Enhancement of system test and evaluation from birth to battlefield through technology integration with maintenance test and training

The premise of this paper is that there is a great need of integrating the activities associated with operational test and evaluation, maintenance testing, and training to enhance the effects of these activities and reduce the costs associated with them. It is expected that significant program activities improvements and cost savings could be made by leveraging technologies and program activities into an integrated, cohesive set of activities. This paper, however, does not address the management or bureaucratic issues associated with such a concept, but rather the technology and information/data that could be formally integrated in order to gain significant cost and schedule savings, while resulting in a better product to the soldier/user in the field. This paper addresses four specific areas of overlap where significant opportunities lie: (1) Design for testing and diagnostics/prognostics; (2) Maintainability considerations; (3) Applications of maintenance tests to system test and evaluation; and, (4) System Battle Damage Assessment and repair training.