A New Way to Justify Test and Evaluation Infrastructure Investments

September, 2018
IDA document: D-9217
FFRDC: Science and Technology Policy Institute
Type: Documents
Authors:
Authors
Paul F. Piscopo, Patricia F. Bronson See more authors
In 2013, the Congress directed that a study be conducted on the ability of the national test and evaluation infrastructure to effectively and efficiently mature technologies for defense-related hypersonic systems development through 2030. It further required that a report be submitted to the Congress on the study results, along with a plan identifying the capability needs and proposed defense-related investments. IDA supported both congressionally directed efforts and was subsequently tasked to provide a business case analysis for the proposed investments. For this analysis, IDA used an approach that expanded the cost-benefit “control volume” to include projected system development savings from the Milestone A Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction Phase decision to the Milestone C Production and Deployment Phase decision for three conceptual conventional hypersonic systems. This article describes the IDA-developed methodology used to successfully justify and secure full funding for the proposed five-year, $350 million Department of Defense Test and Evaluation infrastructure investment augmentation.