By Emelie Rutherford
The Marine Corps’ developmental Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) will enter critical reliability-growth testing in the coming weeks that likely will determine if the long- delayed program will continue.
Contractor General Dynamics [GD] this week was expected to turn over to the government the sixth of seven redesigned prototypes, do-overs of the tracked amphibious vehicle that missed reliability goals during a 2006 operational assessment. EFV program manager Col. Keith Moore, meanwhile, is overseeing regression testing of the latest drop of vehicle software developed at Hill AFB, Utah.
These efforts are in preparation for the reliability-growth tests expected to begin in late October or early November .
Moore, in a Sept. 20 interview with Defense Daily, said the multi-week software testing will culminate with a mini-mission profile to ensure the software is driving the system correctly. The Marine operators then will go through roughly a week of training to understand software refinements such as improved fire control.
Moore then plans to conduct a week-long pilot test for reliability growth on the new EFVs, which he projected will occur the week of Oct. 18.
“Think of it as sort of the walk through a couple of days before a football game,” Moore said.
Then the reliability-growth testing will kick off, likely in the final days of October or first days of November, he said. After 500 hours of such testing on four vehicles, a time that will likely come in late January, Moore’s system engineers and reliability team will determine the mean time between operational mission failure (MTBOMF).
The goal, Moore said, is for the vehicles to have at least 16.4 MTBOMF at that juncture, which will the second of five “knowledge points” set for the program. If the EFVs exhibit that minimum MTBOMF, they can proceed on with the reliability-growth testing and work toward a goal of 43.5 MTBOMF, which is what they must reach when the first low-rate production vehicles are taken to initial operational testing and evaluation.
“The way that we derive 16.4 is, if that’s my starting point, I still have the resources and the time in the program to grow reliability to the threshold key performance parameter of 43.5 mean time between operational mission failure,” Moore said. “Anything above 16.4 reduces the risk of being able to do it, reduces the total number of hours that it will take to get there (to 43.5).”
Moore said he is “pretty confident” the MTBOMF number will be in the low 20s at knowledge point 2 in late January.
“All the indicators right now are that everything we did in (the) design for reliability (phase) really works, we really understood what the issues are,” he said. “General Dynamics really understood and was able to work in their own designs as well as working with the vendors that were designing components to really do a good job of that.”
Moore said the number of “infant mortality” failures with the new prototypes, the typical shortcomings such as misassembled items, has dropped at a rate he is happy with.
The EFV vehicle effort, which suffered cost and technical problems earlier this decade, was restructured and successfully emerged in 2008 from a critical design review (CDR) that determined the new vehicle design had favorable reliability estimates. As part of a second system design and development effort, formalized in a $766.8 million contract awarded in mid-2008, General Dynamics built the seven redesigned prototypes and modified existing, faulty test vehicles.
The first knowledge point for the EFV effort was the analytically derived prediction of system reliability that was set during the 2008 CDR.
The fifth knowledge point will lead up to the decision about whether to grant General Dynamics a contract for low-rate-initial production (LRIP) EFVs. That LRIP date has slipped and is currently set for fiscal year 2013.
Moore acknowledged the intense focus on the knowledge point 2 assessment expected for late January.
The Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) called two weeks ago for cutting the Marine Corps’ fiscal year 2011 EFV request and preparing for a possible program cancellation. While the Marine Corps requested $242.8 million for the EFV in FY ’11, the SAC called for granting just $38.8 million to carry the program through reliability-growth testing and appropriating $183.5 million for terminating the program if the vehicles fare poorly in that testing.
The SAC’s defense appropriations bill has not yet been taken up by the full Senate, and it ultimately would have to be reconciled with competing legislation in the House. Congress will not pass the Pentagon budget bill before FY ’11 starts Oct. 1.
Doubt about the EFV’s future exists in the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has questioned if the U.S military will conduct any more major amphibious landings on foreign shores. He called the EFV effort in May a prime example of a future plan that should be adjusted “as the strategic environment evolves.”
Still, Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway has vehemently defended the EFV, saying such as vehicle that can quickly carry combat-ready Marines to land from ships 25 miles off shore is central to the service’s amphibious nature. Deputy Commandant Gen. James Amos, who the White House has tapped to replace Conway, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the EFV “will help to fill a current gap in littoral capabilities and supports a waterborne assault capability the United States cannot live without–assured access and forcible entry from the sea.”