Test and Evaluation Management Reform: Issues and Options; Journal article

摘要

Can a change in the management structure of the Department of Defense's test and evaluation infrastructure make it more cost-effective and efficient while retaining the responsiveness and the weapons quality of the present system. The Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition process and its test and evaluation (T&E) subprocess produce the world's finest weapon systems, and it retains a reputation for responsiveness to military needs and acquisition of quality weapon systems and other items. Yet the constant pursuit of greater cost-effectiveness and efficiency leads to questions and analyses of whether a different management structure such as a single DoD T&E organization would better accomplish these needs and goals. To properly consider this question, the author focuses on the infrastructure and management that supports the T&E process rather than on the T&E process itself, which consists of the planning, provisioning, and conducting of tests together with the analysis and reporting of data resulting from those tests. Eight options for restructuring the T&E infrastructure management are discussed, including leaving the current system in place; combining each Service's T&E organizations into a single Service organization that would report to a Service T&E component commander; creating a continental United States (CONUS) Range Command structure; realigning the funding to a centralized funding line for justification, appropriation, and distribution; establishing a Defense T&E Command (DTEC) under the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA); consolidating all T&E infrastructure under the management control of a DoD T&E agency (DTEA); establishing a Defense Acquisition Agency (DAA) that would combine all of the acquisition functions within each of the Services under a single DoD agency; and establishing a government corporation that would be a semigovernmental entity chartered by the government to manage and provide T&E services.