By Geoff Fein
For the operational, test and evaluation force, integrated testing is without a doubt one of the most significant changes in determining if a system, technology or platform is ready to be handed over to the fleet, according to a top Navy official.
“The mentality of operational test, when things were simpler, was ‘you build it we will check it out at the end and make sure it is OK,'” Rear Adm. David Dunaway, commander, operational test and evaluation force (COMOPTEVFOR), told Defense Daily in an interview last week.
“There were plenty of prototypes, plenty of time,” he added.
“We could give our critique and return the system. Things are so concurrent now, going so much faster and so much more complicated that that process is a failed process,” Dunaway said about the way operational, test and evaluation (OPTEV) were conducted.
Now, OPTEVFOR uses an integrated test process where Dunaway will go through what he calls his “design of experiments.”
“I get my operational test framework. I get down to the few that I need. It is my open book exam,” he said. “I get involved pre-Milestone B and I walk the programs all the way through.”
When lieutenants first check in at OPTEVFOR, Dunaway tells them it’s their job to make independent operational test and evaluation (IOTE) “a complete waste.”
“I want everything identified before we go into operational test and evaluation (OPEVAL),” Dunaway said.
If issues are not identified before entering OPEVAL, Dunaway said it can take a long time before the problem is fixed.
“That’s the mentality that has changed in this business,” he noted. “I am giving inputs back in the time frame when the program has money and is making design choices and has the flexibility to fix things before they show up in the fleet.”
That’s why Dunaway believes OPTEVFOR is value added to the process.
“When we discover [a problem] in IOTE, we failed. We didn’t design our test right. We missed a spot,” he said. “It’s tough, but I think we are doing much better in that regard…so much more better.”
One thing Dunaway has learned since coming into the job is that in the world of OPTEV, ships are different. Dunaway added there might be a better way to do OPTEV for ships.
“We have our methodologies that we are using right now. It’s close coordination with PEO Subs, PEO IWS, PEO Ships. We work very closely together,” he said. “I think there is a better method of doing it.”
Every year, Dunaway must churn out about 100 reports from the more than 280 programs OPTEVFOR monitors.
“When I get through these next batch of reports I am going to put out, I am going to call together a group of stakeholders and we are going to revisit…a better way to adjust how we are reporting on ships,” he said. “Look at the LPD-17 class. Five ships [have been] procured and I am still writing a report. There are ships deployed and I am writing reports.”
Dunaway said OPTEVFOR is being very effective in influencing the process, but he doesn’t think the world at-large understands that there is concurrency going on. “We have to buy the ships and lay the keels and press on if you want to have a Navy.”
“We are doing a great job of that. I am influencing it differently, but the external world doesn’t understand it,” he said. “That’s’ what we are working on–continuous improvement to how we fit into the real world.”