Again and again in briefings and conferences I am asked: “What are the major problems in T&E [Test & Evaluation]?” I think there is really only one T&E problem, and it’s not in T&E.
It’s in the planning, programming, and budgeting system – – and in the appropriations system – – by which we pigeonhole money out into the future in theoretical boxes called fiscal years and appropriation categories and program elements.
Starting in about 1970, with the Blue Ribbon Panel, and following thereafter with the Commission on Government Procurement, we have been establishing a defense-industry material acquisition system that is achievement-oriented.
Yet we are still programming and appropriating our funds on a calendar-oriented system; and when we reach the point where the calendar says we should be going into production, and the test data will not support this, it simply is too painful to try to reprogram large amounts of money on short notice from procurement into RDT&E to make it work before we buy it.
Until we come to grips with this problem, I don’t think we are going to make any great progress in improving T&E by looking at other, smaller T&E problems.
That was part of an excellent presentation by RADM Robert R. MONROE, US Navy, Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force, speaking at the National Security Industrial Association Conference in Washington, D.C. 23 September 1976.
We often here how budgeting and the PPBE cycle is calendar based, the acquisition system achievement based, and requirements are threat based. The problem is that syncronizing these decision systems means that the budget plan must predict both technological achievements and military threats in order for it to arrive on time.
The primacy of the budget as a prerequisite to doing anything at all means that the acquisition process has to bend to the (usually optimistic) financial plan created years ago, regardless of whether the technology has caught up. And that, as RADM Monroe argued, is why testing is inadequate. Production funds have been lined up. Changing the plan brings a scornful eye from top management and Congress.
Source: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE WEAPONS TESTING: CONSULTANTS, CONTRACTORS, AND POLICY. HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL SERVICES’, POST OFFICE, AND CIVIL SERVICE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES SENATE, ONE HUNDRED FIRST CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, JUNE 16, 1989.
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